One in eight people globally are obese, with rates in children increasing fourfold in three decades

More than a billion people are affected by obesity, which is now the most common form of malnutrition in most of the world, a study published in the Lancet has found.1

While the proportion of children that are underweight has fallen by a fifth in girls and a third in boys in the past three decades, obesity in children and adolescents was four times higher in 2022 than it was in 1990.

For adults, obesity rates more than doubled in that period, the review by more than 1500 researchers found.

“It is concerning that the epidemic of obesity that was evident among adults in much of the world in 1990 is now mirrored in school aged children and adolescents,” said Majid Ezzati, one of the study’s authors at Imperial College London. “At the same time, hundreds of millions are still affected by undernutrition, particularly in some of the poorest parts of the world.”

To understand global malnutrition trends between 1990 and 2022, the researchers and practitioners at the research network, the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, joined the …