Agencies
NEW DELHI, Mar 4: By 2050, India could have over 440 million obese and overweight people, a global analysis published in The Lancet journal has estimated amidst row over 'fat-shaming' Indian cricket team captain Rohit Sharma by Congress national spokesperson Shama Mohamed.
Number of overweight and obese adults by mid-century in India (218 million men and 231 million women) could be the second highest in the world, after China, with the US, Brazil and Nigeria expected to rank third, fourth and fifth, respectively, the findings by an international team of researchers reveal.
These researchers, including those from the Indian Council of Medical Research, collaborated for the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2021.
As per the study, already almost half the world's adults - a billion men and over a billion women aged 25 years and above - were overweight and obese in 2021. In India, the numbers were over nearly 180 million - 81 million men and 98 million women.
However, by 2050, this number globally could rise to nearly 3.8 billion - 1.8 billion men and 1.9 billion women - "over half of the likely global adult population at that time", the authors said.
"While China, India, and the USA will continue to constitute a large proportion of the global population with overweight and obesity, the number in the sub-Saharan Africa super-region is forecasted to increase by 254.8 per cent," they wrote.
The researchers also estimated that about 16 million boys and over 14 million girls in India, aged 5-14 years, could be overweight and obese by 2050, making it world's second highest after China.
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