International
Obesity TaskForce - Press Release
Embargo 0001
GMT Monday – to coincide with release of WHO report
For further information contact:
Neville Rigby, director of policy and public affairs, IOTF mobile
+44 (0) 7939250347
Press release will be posted here over the weekend
[Ends]
Note
to editors:
Prof
Philip James chairs the International Obesity TaskForce, (part of the International
Association for the Study of Obesity). He is vice president of the International
Union of Nutritional Sciences and chairs their chronic disease prevention
group. He chaired the Commission on the Nutrition Challenges of the 21st
Century which delivered its report - Ending Malnutrition by 2020: an Agenda
for Change in the Millennium – to the United Nations in March 2000.
IOTF
has contributed analysis to the Global
Burden of Disease project (GBD), a worldwide collaboration of over 100
researchers, sponsored by WHO and the World Bank and based at the Harvard
School of Public Health.A projection
of obesity rates up to 2030 will be included in Global Burden of Disease,
to be published by WHO and Harvard later this year.
Adult
obesity rates rose in the UK from 6-8% in 1980 to 21-23.5% in 2001.
Among
UK children overweight and obesity rates doubled to more than 20% in less
than 15 years.
In
the USA adult obesity rates have risen from 14.25% in 1978 to 31% in 2000.
Now 25%
of all white children overweight and 33% of African American and Hispanic
children were overweight in 2001.
About
300 million people are estimated to be obese (with a Body Mass Index of
30 or more) with a further 700 million overweight. (a Body Mass Index of
25-29.9)
Recently
recommendations to lower the threshold of overweight in Asia to a Body
Mass Index 23 would increase these figures considerably.
The
World Health Report 2002 estimated that more than 2.5 million deaths annually
are weight-related. Deaths directly related to obesity have been estimated
at 320 000 a year in Europe and more than 300,000 in the USA.
For
more details see www.iotf.org/media
IASO
International Obesity TaskForce
231 North Gower Street, London NW1 2NS
tel +44 20 7691 1902 /fax +44
20 7387 6033
mobile +44 7939250347
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Internet: http://www.iaso.org
/ http://www.iotf.org