India harbours second highest number of obese children in the world; China tops list!

New Delhi: The fact that obesity is a step toward long term health problems is not unknown.

It can negatively affect most of your organs – especially the heart – making you vulnerable to diabetes, joint pains, arthritis, causing difficulties for women during pregnancy – basically, impact your overall health.

Obesity is one of the biggest problems at present, that is rapidly becoming a part of everyone's life. The rising number of obese people around the world just goes to show how we are allowing a particular lifestyle to dictate us into an unhealthy state of being.

A recent study just declared that more than one in 10 people worldwide are now obese and 2.2 billion are believed to be overweight, fueling a global health crisis that claims millions of lives every year.

Now, making it case-specific, a report in the Times of India (TOI) has recognised India with the second highest childhood obesity rate, second only to China.

The alarming study also found that 14.4 million kids in the country have excess weight. Researchers observed that more than two billion children and adults around the world suffer from obesity-related health problems. Not only that, but an increasing number also lose their lives due to these conditions.

However, of the four million deaths attributed to excess body weight in 2015, nearly 40% occurred among people whose body mass index (BMI) fell below the threshold considered "obese".

As per the TOI report, the findings represent "a disturbing global public health crisis," according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Among the 20 most populous countries, the highest level of obesity among kids and young adults was in the US at nearly 13%; Egypt topped the list for adult obesity at about 35%. Lowest rates were in Bangladesh and Vietnam, respectively, at 1%.

Statistics reveal that China is leading in childhood obesity rates with 15.3 million, while India is a close second with 14.4 million.

In 2015, US recorded 79.4 million and China with 57.3 million cases respectively of the highest numbers of obese adults.

"People who shrug off weight gain do so at risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and other life-threatening conditions," said Christopher Murray, from the University of Washington. The study, which spans 195 countries and territories from 1980 through 2015, includes analyses of other studies on the effects of excess weight and potential links between high BMI and cancers of the oesophagus, colon and rectum, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, breast, uterus, kidney, and thyroid, as well as leukaemia. In 2015, excess weight affected 2.2 billion children and adults worldwide, or 30% of all people, TOI reported.