Obesity has become a long-time worldwide battle that has cost way too much than people could imagine. Total global cost on the condition has reached $2 trillion annually, according to a report by the McKinsey Global Institute. Such heavy expenses is nearly as high as that in smoking or much higher than alcoholism or climate change or the combined impact of armed violence, war and terrorism, the report said.
"Obesity isn't just a health issue," Richard Dobbs, one of the report's authors said. "But it's a major economic and business challenge."
The report focused on the economics of obesity, putting it among the top three social programs generated by human beings. It puts its impact at 2.8 percent of global gross domestic product.
The company says 2.1 billion people or about 30 per cent of the global population are overweight or obese and that about 15 per cent of health care costs in developed economies are driven by it.
The report said there was a "steep economic toll", and the proportion could rise to almost half of the world's population by 2030. The financial costs of obesity are growing - for health care and more widely in the economy. By causing illness, obesity results in working days and output lost.
The report's authors argue that "efforts to deal with obesity have been piecemeal until now," and that a systemic response is needed. "These initiatives would need to draw on interventions that rely less on individual responsibility and more on changes to the environment," the report said.
McKinsey said that there's no single or simple solution to the problem, "but global disagreement on how to move forward is hurting progress." The analysis is meant to offer a starting point on the elements of a possible strategy.
"We see our work on a potential program to address obesity as the equivalent of the maps used by 16th-century navigators," McKinsey said in its report. "Some islands were missing and some continents misshapen in these maps, but they were still helpful to the sailors of that era."
A person is considered obese if he or she is overweight with a high degree of body fat. The most common way to assess if a person is obese is to check his or her body mass index (BMI), which divides one's weight in kilograms by the height in meters squared. If one's BMI is above 25, he or she is overweight. A BMI of 30-40 is considered obese, while above 40 is very obese. A BMI of less than 18.5 is underweight.
The report was produced by McKinsey Global Institute, the business and economics research arm of consultancy firm McKinsey & Company.
