presents a risk to health" (WHO 2012). A crude population measure of obesity is the
body mass index, a person's weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of his or her
height (in meters). A person with a body mass index equal to or more than 25 is
considered overweight, whereas body mass index of 30 or more is generally considered
obese. Overweight and obesity are major risk factors for a number of chronic diseases,
including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
Obesity is today's most blatantly visible yet most neglected public health problem.
Once considered a problem only in high income countries, overweight and obesity are
now drastically on the rise in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in urban
settings. Paradoxically coexisting with undernutrition, an escalating global epidemic of
overweight and obesity- 'globosity' is taking over many parts of the world. Obesity is a
complex condition, one with serious social and psychological dimensions, that affects
virtually all ages and socio-economic groups and threatens to overwhelm both
developed and developing countries.
According to WHO, overweight and obesity are the fifth leading risks for global deaths.
At least 2.8 million adults die each year as a result of being overweight or obese. In
addition, 44 per cent of the diabetes burden, 23 per cent of the ischemic heart disease
burden and between 7 per cent and 41 per cent of certain cancer burdens are attributable
to overweight and obesity.
