According to research published in 2013, 1 in 5 American deaths is associated with obesity,¹ and the younger you are, the greater obesity’s influence on your mortality. Considering one-third of American children between the ages of 2 and 19 are now overweight or obese, chronic disease and mortality rates will likely climb dramatically in coming decades as the health of these youths begins to fail.

Since 1980, childhood obesity rates have tripled in the U.S., the rate of obese teens has quadrupled from 5 to 20.5 percent, and nearly 9 percent of 2- to 5-year-olds are now obese.² As of 2014, the obesity rate among adults over 20 was just shy of 38 percent, costing the U.S. medical system $190 billion annually.

In December 2011, severe obesity was included as a qualifying disability under the American With Disabilities Act, further raising the cost of obesity on society as a whole. Being overweight during pregnancy also increases the risk of birth defects, recent research warns, and the more obese the mother, the greater the risk.⁴,⁵

More than half of all Americans also struggle with chronic illness⁶ — a truly shocking statistic when you consider modern health care is supposed to be the best mankind has ever been privy to. It really says a lot about the influence lifestyle wields on your health, and the price we pay for convenience.

Obesity — A Greater Health Threat Than Smoking

Data collected from tens of thousands of Canadians confirms obesity surpasses smoking in terms of creating ill health, and Dutch researchers recently predicted obesity and inactivity will overtake smoking as a leading cause of cancer deaths specifically.⁷ Processed foods shoulder the greatest blame for this trend. Many children are raised on fast food from the time they’re able to eat solid foods, and are given sugary sodas and juices at even younger ages. As recently noted by Bruce Y. Lee in a Forbes op-ed^:8

“The human population is in desperate need of an intervention … the kind organized by your friends when you don’t realize how bad your problem has gotten and need to be confronted about it … How much more convincing do people really need? Continuing to gather more evidence without taking much more action is like continuing to check the water level while your toilet is overflowing without even reaching for the plunger.

In both cases, the result will be messy. The latest additions to what has become a growing mound of scientific evidence are the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Obesity Update 2017 report⁹ and a just published study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).”

1 in 10 Adults Worldwide Is Obese

According to the OECD, the global obesity rate among adults is now 1 in 10, or 10 percent.¹⁰,^11,12 In 2015, excess weight accounted for 4 million deaths worldwide (just over 7 percent). Thirty-nine percent of people who died from cardiovascular disease were overweight but not obese, prompting a warning that health problems are not relegated to obesity. Carrying even a modest amount of excess weight can have a significant impact on your health.