The Global Obesity Threat

Apr 2, 2015 Richard Dobbs , Boyd Swinburn

The global obesity epidemic is not just a pressing health concern; it is also a threat to the world economy. The total economic impact of obesity is about $2 trillion a year, or 2.8% of world GDP – roughly equivalent to the damage caused by smoking or armed violence, war, and terrorism.

LONDON/MELBOURNE – In 2010, humanity passed an important milestone. According to the Global Burden of Disease Study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, obesity became a bigger public-health problem than hunger.

Today, according to the latest edition of the study, more than 2.1 billion people – nearly 30% of the global population – are overweight or obese. That is nearly two and a half times the number of adults and children who are undernourished. Obesity is responsible for about 5% of deaths worldwide.

This crisis is not just a pressing health concern; it is also a threat to the global economy. The total economic impact of obesity is about $2 trillion a year, or 2.8% of world GDP – roughly equivalent to the economic damage caused by smoking or armed violence, war, and terrorism, according to new research by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI).

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Richard Dobbs

Writing for PS since 2013
6 Commentaries

Richard Dobbs is a director of the McKinsey Global Institute and co-author of No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends.

Boyd Swinburn

Writing for PS since 2015
1 Commentary

Boyd Swinburn is Professor of Population Nutrition and Global Health at the University of Auckland and Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University in Melbourne.

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C. Hazen Apr 2, 2015

Fine essay. Critically important. Inability of individuals to address obesity is a questionable assertion however.
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C. Hazen Apr 2, 2015

I was obese. I was guilty of self-indulgence. I've repented. It can be done. Self-control is latent within all of us. We cruelly mislead others when we call obesity a disease as if it "happens" to us rather than it's being the predictable outcome of our self-indulgent choices.
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C. Hazen Apr 2, 2015

Superb essay tackling unpleasant truth. The one assertion that I would question is, "No single entity – government, retailers, consumer-goods companies, restaurants, employers, media organizations, educators, health-care providers, or individuals – can address obesity on its own." While many do not, by choice, address obesity, my personal experience is that individuals can do so, if they choose. I've been obese off and on throughout my 72 years, often despairing I could do nothing about it, but eventually, slowly but surely, with no fads or gimmicks, simply exercising the self-control latent within all humans, I finally began to win the battle, and, off and on, have kept obesity at bay for about 20 years. We do a disservice to people when we affirm their lack of self-control and call obesity a disease as if choice were not an issue. I know without a shadow of a doubt that my own obesity had only one root: self-indulgence. I was guilty. I've repented. It can be done.
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