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South Africa is reported to have one of the highest rates of obesity in the world, with more than 20 million overweight adults.
This was revealed on Wednesday, when Discovery Vitality announced the results of the Vitality ObeCity Index 2023 study.
The announcement came ahead of World Obesity Day, which was yesterday.
The index analysed data from Vitality members living in six cities around the country.
“We analysed almost 300 000 Vitality health checks completed across South Africa in 2022 to rank the cities according to the proportion of Vitality members with a healthy weight. We hope that the ObeCity Index highlights possible solutions not only for Vitality members, but also for all South Africans,” said Govender.
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According to the study, Cape Town had the highest proportion of members with an in-range weight status, while Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape had the lowest.
The cities were ranked according to the percentage of healthy food items purchased compared with overall food items purchased.
Mosima Mabunda, head of wellness at Discovery Vitality, said the weight issues faced by the country were worrisome because obesity increased the risk of people developing serious and noncommunicable diseases. She said:
According to the ObeCity Index, other conditions that could develop are stroke, chronic lung diseases, chronic kidney diseases and musculoskeletal complications.
Overweight and obesity were defined as excessive fat accumulation that could impair health, explained Mabunda, adding that, in South Africa, 31% of men, 68% of women and about 13% of children younger than five were overweight or obese.
"BMI, calculated as a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of their height in metres, is also a well-known predictor of health and mortality outcomes. Globally, research shows that a person’s risk of death increases at BMI ranges higher than 25,” she said.
However, an important limitation of BMI was that it could not distinguish between fat and lean mass, meaning that certain people, such as those with increased muscle mass, could be incorrectly classified as overweight.
Mabunda said the Vitality ObeCity Index presented the latest insights into the weight status, food purchasing and exercise behaviour of Vitality members. Through the study, Vitality aimed to empower, motivate and encourage people to be healthy.
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Evelyn Tshehla, a research director and health economist, said obesity was driven by a complex system that required a combination of interventions that were mutually reinforcing. She said:
She said there was no single “magic bullet” for preventing obesity. Instead, collective efforts and policies were needed to tackle the pandemic.
Jeanne Lubbe, who is part of the national health department obesity strategy review team, said an increasing number of people around the world were dying from obesity, and South Africans were even more at risk.
She added that people at all levels of society needed to understand the burden of obesity and unite their efforts to help South Africans make healthier food and lifestyle choices.
“We now understand that the causes of obesity are multifactorial and occur at all levels, including the individual person, the immediate environment in which we find ourselves and the larger world in which we live.
One of the most notable successes in South Africa for obesity prevention and reduction is the national school nutrition programme, which provides one nutritious meal a day to 9 million children during school terms. This is supplemented by an additional nutritious breakfast for 40 000 children in the poorest schools,” said Lubbe.
More than half of the world’s population will be overweight or obese by 2035 unless significant action is taking, says a new report.
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The World Obesity Federation’s 2023 atlas predicts that 51% of the world, or more than 4 billion people, will be obese or overweight within the next 12 years.
Rates of obesity are rising particularly quickly among children and in lower-income countries, the report found.
Describing the data as a “clear warning”, Louise Baur, president of the World Obesity Federation, said that policymakers needed to act now to prevent the situation worsening.
The report found that childhood obesity could more than double from 2020 levels to 208 million boys and 175 million girls by 2035.
The cost to society is significant as a result of the health conditions linked to being overweight, the federation said – more than $4 trillion (R73 trillion) annually by 2035, or 3% of global GDP.
However, the authors said they were not blaming individuals, but calling for a focus on the societal, environmental and biological factors involved in the conditions.
In 2020, 2.6 billion people fell into these categories, or 38% of the world’s population.
The report also found that almost all of the countries expected to see the greatest increases in obesity in the coming years are low- or middle-income countries in Asia and Africa.
The data will be presented to UN policymakers and member states next week. – Additional facts from Reuters
