Global Health Effects of Overweight and Obesity

The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study that is now reported in the Journal offers a discouraging reminder that the global obesity epidemic is worsening in most parts of the world and that its implications regarding both physical health and economic health remain ominous.1 The study, in which researchers assembled data from 195 countries to model trends in overweight and obesity and related morbidity and mortality, showed that the prevalence of obesity has more than doubled since 1980 and is now 5% in children and 12% in adults — findings that mirror similar global trends in type 2 diabetes. Apart . . .