Obesity Prevalence in the Long-Term Future in 18 European Countries and in the USA

Abstract

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> Obesity constitutes a major public health problem in Europe, but how the obesity epidemic in European countries will evolve remains unknown. Most previous obesity projections considered the short-term future only, focused on single non-European countries, and projected ongoing increases foremost. We comparatively project obesity prevalence into the long-term future for 18 European countries and the USA. <b><i>Data:</i></b> We used national age-specific (20–84 years) and sex-specific obesity prevalence estimates (1975–2016) from the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) 2017 study, which are based on available measured height and weight data, supplemented with estimates from a Bayesian hierarchical model. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> We projected age- and sex-specific obesity prevalence up to the year 2100 by integrating the notion of a wave-shaped obesity epidemic into conventional age-period projections. <b><i>Results:</i></b> In 1990–2016, the increasing trends in obesity prevalence were decelerating. Obesity is expected to reach maximum levels between 2030 and 2052 among men, and between 2026 and 2054 among women. The maximum levels will likely be reached first in The Netherlands, USA, and UK, and last in Switzerland; and are expected to be highest in the USA and UK, and lowest in The Netherlands for men and Denmark for women. In 2060, obesity prevalence is expected to be lowest among Dutch men and highest among Swiss men. The projected age-specific obesity prevalence levels have an inverse U-shape, peaking at around the age of 60–69 years. <b><i>Discussion:</i></b> Applying our novel approach to the NCD-RisC 2017 data, obesity prevalence is expected to reach maximum levels between 2026 and 2054, with the USA and UK reaching the highest maximum levels first, followed by other European countries.

The combined impact of smoking, obesity and alcohol on life-expectancy trends in Europe

“…Indeed, over the short term, less favourable e0 trends are expected because continued increases in smoking-attributable mortality for women in most countries and general increases in obesity-attributable mortality are anticipated. Increases in e0 are expected to become more favourable again once the declines in smoking-attributable mortality among women become more widespread and the hypothesized decline in obesity-attributable mortality 17 , 18 , 28 eventually sets in.…”

“…For the 30 countries under study, we used previously calculated estimates of smoking-, obesity- and alcohol-attributable mortality fractions by sex and single adult ages (smoking: 35–100 years; obesity and alcohol: 20–100 years) (see next paragraph). 16 , 20 , 38 In addition, we used age-, sex-, country- and year-specific all-cause mortality and population data from the Human Mortality Database. 39 We studied the period 1990–2014 because alcohol-attributable mortality could be estimated only since 1990 and smoking-attributable mortality could not be estimated after 2014 for several countries due to the unavailability of lung-cancer-mortality rates for more recent years (see Supplementary Data & Methods—Appendix 1 , available as Supplementary data at IJE online, for the data availability by country for the different elements).…”

“… 16 The tripling of obesity prevalence in Europe since 1980 26 has resulted in clear increases in obesity-attributable mortality fractions over the 1975–2016 period, 27 albeit with a recent slowing-down of the rates of increase. 28 Alcohol prevalence and, subsequently, alcohol-attributable mortality levels, which are especially high among Eastern-European men, 29 , 30 had been mostly increasing in Eastern and North-western Europe, although recently they have been stagnating or declining in most of these countries. In most South-western-European countries, these levels have been steadily declining, albeit more slowly in recent years.…”

Projected economic burden of pancreatic cancer in Sweden in 2030

“…The two most important potentially modifiable risk factors are tobacco smoking and excess body weight, which are responsible for 10% to 30% of the cases [30,31]. Obesity prevalence is expected to increase in Europe and the USA in the coming years [32], while tobacco use is expected to decline [33,34].…”

Factors Related to Weight Loss Maintenance in the Medium–Long Term after Bariatric Surgery: A Review

“…Obesity is defined as the pathological increase in adipose tissue associated with chronic low-grade inflammation and an increased risk of many pathological conditions such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), cardiovascular disease, or cancer [ 1 , 2 ]. It is considered an epidemic disease and is expected to affect 44% of the adult population of the USA in 2031 and 31% of the adult population of Europe in 2037 [ 3 ].…”