India's Battle of the Bulge

A report published by Lancet has depicted an alarming picture of the state of obesity in India—about 21.8 crore men and 23.1 crore women, or a third of India's population, are likely to be overweight or obese by 2050.

- K N NINAN

In India, people with a body mass index (BMI) of above or equal to 25 are categorised as obese or overweight. According to the World Health Organization, those with a BMI of 25 or more are considered overweight, and those with 30 or more as obese. The BMI is a measure of a person's body fat based on their height and weight, and is calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms, by the square of their height in meters (kg/m²).

India ranked third in the world with an estimated 4.5 crore people categorised as obese in 2023. The top rank was held by the US, with an estimated 7.94 crore obese people, followed by China with 5.73 crore. However, the proportion of obese people to the total population in India and China being 7.2 percent and 8.2 percent, respectively, are much lower than that for the US (42.9 percent). In many developed and developing countries, the obesity rate is around 30 percent or more.

Global data shows that between 1990 to 2022, the overall percentage of adults above 18 years with obesity has more than doubled from 7 percent to 16 percent, while for children and adolescents aged 5 to 18 years, this proportion rose from 2 percent to 8 percent. These rates vary widely across countries and regions.