WHO is alarmed by the growing obesity epidemic in Europe

The figure is staggering: today, more than half of the adult population in Europe suffers from obesity or overweight and one in three children too. The WHO is concerned in its new report about this epidemic which has no borders and which nothing seems to stop. The cause of 13 different types of cancer, causing more than 1.3 million deaths worldwide each year, obesity ranks fourth among risk factors for death…

A ” epidemic ” of overweight and D’obesityresponsible for more than 1.2 million deaths a year, is raging in Europe, worried the World Health Organization on Tuesday (WHO) in a new report. ” Overweight and obesity rates have reached epidemic proportions across the region and continue to rise “Lamented in a press release the European branch of the organization which brings together 53 states.

In Europe, almost a quarter of adolescents are now obese, making the prevalence of obesity higher than in any other region except the Americas, according to the WHO. No country in the region can currently claim to be stopping progress, and the scale of the problem was starkly revealed during the pandemic of Covid-19 where the overweight was a risk factor.

” Increased body mass index is a major risk factor for non-communicable diseases, including cancers and cardiovascular disease “, underlined the director of WHO Europe, Hans Kluge, quoted in the report. overweight and obesity would thus be the cause of more than 1.2 million deaths per year, representing more than 13% of deaths in the region, according to the study.

Obesity is the cause of at least 13 types of cancer different and likely to be directly responsible for at least 200,000 new cases of cancer per year, according to the WHO. ” This figure is expected to increase further in the coming years. “warned the organization.

The health crisis has revealed the scale of the overweight epidemic

The latest comprehensive data available, dating back to 2016, shows that 59% of adults and nearly one in three children (29% of boys and 27% of girls) are overweight in the Old Continent. In 1975, barely 40% of European adults were overweight. The prevalence of obesity in adults has soared 138% since then, with an increase of 21% between 2006 and 2016.

According to the WHO, the Covid-19 pandemic has made it possible to measure the impact of the overweight epidemic in the region. The restrictions (closing of schools, confinement) have at the same time “ resulted in increased exposure to certain risk factors that influence a person’s likelihood of being obese or overweight“said Mr. Kluge.

The pandemic is causing harmful changes in eating and sports habits, the lasting effects of which must be reversed, argued the WHO. ” Policy interventions that target the environmental and market determinants of poor diets (…) are likely to be most effective in reversing the epidemic “, she estimated.

It is also appropriate, according to her, to tax the sugary drinkssubsidizing healthy foods, limiting the marketing of unhealthy foods to children and support efforts to encourage physical activity throughout life.