7/1/02 Wall Street Journal - Obesity: A World-Wide Woe

[Guest guest]

This is last week's (last year's?) news, but I thought it would be worth

passing on, esp. given the TIME cover story this week...Plenty of vague

reference to global emulation of American affluenza; no specific mention of

meat, dairy, or animal fat (though the print version was accompanied by a

cartoon cheeseburger floating through space...)

 

 

 

Rising Global Obesity Reflects Changes in Diet and Lifestyles

 

By RON WINSLOW and PETER LANDERS

Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 

If American affluence is the envy of much of the rest of the world, there is

a steep price to pay in aspiring to it: obesity.

 

On every continent of the globe, even including regions where malnutrition

is rife, the number of people who are either overweight or obese is rising

at an alarming clip. The major culprit: the same combination of high-calorie

diets and sedentary behavior that fuels the epidemic of fat in the U.S.

 

" There is no country in the world where obesity is not increasing, " says

Stephan Roessner, an obesity expert at Huddinge University Hospital in

Stockholm and president of the International Association for the Study of

Obesity. " Even in [developing] countries we thought were immune [such as

Zimbabwe and Gambia], the epidemic is coming on very fast. The frightening

thing is that so far nobody has succeeded to stop it. "

 

The latest evidence of the epidemic comes in data released last week by the

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group

of 30 industrialized nations. It found that as obesity in the U.S. has

doubled to 26% of the population in the past 20 years, the problem has grown

at least as fast in many of its other member countries. In both Australia

and Great Britain, for instance, rates have tripled to about 21% since 1980,

the OECD study says. The OECD defines obesity as a body mass index over 30

-- the same standard used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Body mass index is a calculation based on height and weight.

 

The OECD findings, based on data from individual countries, add to a growing

stream of reports from the World Health Organization and other prominent

health bodies in recent years. They not only document the problem but warn

of dire consequences for both the health of populations and the economies of

countries facing the prospect of enormous medical expenses resulting from

the epidemic.

 

" We have completely underestimated the nature of the problem we've got, "

Philip James, a prominent British scientist, told a recent international

conference sponsored by the American Heart Association in Hawaii. " We're

looking at a catastrophe to come. " Dr. James is chairman of the

International Obesity Task Force, in Aberdeen, Scotland.

 

Perhaps the biggest worry associated with obesity is the concurrent surge in

diabetes. Some experts predict the number of diabetics world-wide will

triple in the next 15 years to about 320 million -- a number exceeding the

population of the U.S. Diabetes is a major risk factor for cardiovascular

disease and a leading cause of blindness, kidney failure and amputations.

" Diabetes is a very dangerous and expensive complication to obesity, " Dr.

Rössner says.

 

Rising availability of high-fat, high-calorie diets is an oft-cited reason

for bulging girths. But another cause may be decreasing exertion on the job

-- even in traditionally strenuous occupations. Dr. Rössner recalls how as a

young researcher he met Swedish lumberjacks who burned as many as 7,000

calories a day felling timber. " Now all the work is done by machines, " he

says.

 

At the meeting in Hawaii, researchers reporting on the rise of obesity and

heart disease in China said bicycle sales in some areas slowed as workers

traded up to motorized scooters.

 

And in Mexico, the percentage of people overweight or obese has surged in

the past decade to 60% of the population between 18 and 49, according to

Reynoldo Martorell, chairman of the department of international health at

Emory University in Atlanta. " It's no longer a problem only of the

well-to-do. It's everywhere, " he says. As in the U.S., the rate in children

is soaring.

 

Even in Africa, where a scarcity of food is an enormous problem, obesity is

rising in some populations. In the North African countries of Egypt, Tunisia

and Morocco, more women between 15 and 45 years old have a body mass index

greater than 25 -- the threshold for being overweight -- than who have a low

BMI (generally, under 18.5), says Este Vorster, a researcher at

Potchesfstroom University for Christian Higher Education in South Africa.

 

" Africa is still a hungry continent, " she says. But as in other regions,

obesity increases as societies become more urbanized. In addition, " both men

and women believe obesity is good. It is associated with fertility, beauty

and prosperity. " People who are fat are also unlikely to be suspected of

having AIDS, which carries a heavy stigma.

 

The situation in Africa reflects the striking difference in how economic

status is associated with obesity world-wide. In the U.S. and other

developed countries, obesity is more prominent among the poor, while in poor

countries, the well-to-do are more likely to be fat.

 

Some governments have launched broad, population-based prevention strategies

against obesity, akin to seat-belt and antismoking campaigns in the U.S. In

France, for instance, the ministry of health, fretting about a " noticeable

rise in the prevalence of obesity " among French youth, is recommending

schools hand out free fruit and install more water fountains to encourage

kids to stay away from soft drinks. Broader school programs involving diet

and physical exercise also are being launched in Australia, Great Britain

and other countries, much as in the U.S.

 

It may be that developing solutions to obesity is tougher in a free society

than under an authoritarian government such as Singapore. There, according

to the Defense Ministry, if recruits to obligatory military service are

obese, they attend special basic training lasting six weeks longer than the

normal 10-week course, an incentive to be in shape when they enlist. After

they complete their two-year stint, most remain in the service in a reserve

capacity for years and must pass a basic annual fitness test. " That is the

only society I know that has successfully managed the outbreak of the

epidemic, " Dr. Roessner says.

 

Complicating matters for those trying to curb obesity is the notion that

extra fat isn't all about willpower, but the result of a human genetic

package more suited to an era when food was scarce. " Obese individuals

outlive the lean when food is not sufficient, " says Robert H. Eckel, an

obesity researcher at University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in

Denver. Obesity, he suggests, may be the result of " a survival advantage

that has gone astray.

 

-- Phillip Day contributed to this article

 

 

GLOBAL GIRTH

 

Obesity rates are climbing in many nations, due in part to lifestyle shifts:

 

* In Sweden, studies of lumberjacks once showed they burned as many as 7,000

calories a day felling trees and hauling logs, tasks that are now done with

machines

 

* Highway crews in Malaysia who once worked mostly with picks and shovels

now rely on bulldozers and front-end loaders to do the heavy work

 

* In parts of China, sales of bicycles - once the principal mode of

transportation - are declining as motorized scooters become more popular

 

* In parts of Africa -- even in regions ravaged by famine or the AIDS

epidemic -- obesity is growing among the relatively affluent, who consider a

full figure a mark of beauty, fertility and prosperity, as well as

persuasive evidence that you don't have HIV

 

* Survey dates vary by country: most recent figures either 1999 or 2000;

decade-ago figures between 1990 and 1992

 

Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

 

 

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