Canadian women are becoming overweight faster than almost any other women in the high-income world -and they’re putting that weight easily as quickly as Canadian men, a major new global analysis shows.
Worldwide, obesity has nearly doubled since 1980. More than half a billion adults were obese in 2008.
Three studies published in The Lancet this week tracking country-by-country trends for three major risk factors for heart disease over three decades show that while highincome western countries, including Canada, are lowering total cholesterol and blood-pressure levels, obesity is increasing in virtually every region of the world.
Overall, the world has been putting on weight at a rate of about 2 1 /2 to three pounds a decade for each person on the planet. And Canada has some of the highest average body mass indexes among wealthy nations -still less than the United States, the heavyweight champion.
A BMI, or body mass index, is a ratio of weight to height. A BMI greater than 25 is considered overweight, according to the World Health Organization.
Get breaking National news
The Lancet papers estimated trends in 199 countries and territories.
The average BMI for Canadian women rose from 24.1 in 1980, to 26.7 in 2008. For Canadian men, the average BMI rose from 25.2 in 1980 to 27.5 in 2008.
It will take decades to reverse the obesity epidemic, said Dr. Arya Sharma, scientific director of the Canadian Obesity Network and a professor of medicine at the University of Alberta.
“We need to get serious about thinking about treatment. We can all hope that prevention is eventually going to work, but it’s not going to work anytime soon and it certainly does not look like it’s working right now, because the numbers are continuing to rise,” Sharma says.
“When you have a BMI of 26 as an average, that means that there’s a lot of people out there who actually have severe clinical obesity, and need treatment.”
Comments
Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.