Obesity rates to soar if no action is taken
New figures suggest that 2.7 billion adults will be obese by 2025. In a press release the World Obesity Federation has estimated that the global prevalence of obesity will be as high as this if current trend continue. The figures were released on the first World Obesity Day on the 11/10/2015. In the release it explains that in 2012 governments around the world committed to bringing levels of obesity back down to those that existed in 2010, by 2025. This was part of an idea developed by the WHO called the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases. The report suggests that the governments in question have not been doing enough to control the rise in obesity rates.
The president for the World Obesity Federation, Professor Walmir Coutinho, urged these governments to act immediately in order to halt the rise in the obesity epidemic using measures such as market controls, taxes and subsidies, whilst also setting standards for catering services and investment in healthy schools. Whilst the current prevalence of obesity is 13% worldwide, with this estimated increase it will become 17% by 2025, evidently more action needs to be taken to stop this.
