According to the World Health Organization, obesity is defined as, “abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health” (1). A crude measurement of obesity is the body mass index, or BMI, which divides a person’s weight by their height. Those with a BMI of 30 or higher is considered to be obese. Obesity is associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes type 2, hypertension, sleep apnea, cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis, breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, kidney cancer, and various other kinds of cancer (Hofmann 87). Additionally, those who experience obesity often experience a reduced quality of life, social problems, and more. Obesity is a serious medical condition that severely impacts not only the individual suffering from it, but also their families, the surrounding community, health insurers, health policy makers, and more. …show more content…
Each year, over 2.8 million adults die as a result of obesity. Since 1975, worldwide obesity has nearly tripled. In 2016, roughly 41 million children under 5 years old were obese. In America, over one-third of adults suffer from obesity. Compared to malnutrition and being underweight, obesity is linked to more deaths throughout the world. According to the World Health Organization, “65% of the world’s population live in countries where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight.” Obesity was typically seen as a concern for high income countries, however, obesity is also rising in low and middle income countries. For example, in Africa, the number of obese children had increased by almost 50 percent since 2000 (“Obesity and Overweight” 1). Obesity has surpassed the global concern of food insecurity and is no longer a corner confined only to developed countries. Developing countries have a 30% higher rate of childhood obesity than developed, high income