Carolina Gomez Mena
La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, January 26, 2025, p. 8
Obesity is a chronic disease that significantly affects the life expectancy of those who suffer from it. In the case of overweight people, there is a risk of shortening survival of between two and four years, and in those with obesity it is up to 10 years
warned José Sifuentes Osornio, director of the Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition.
The World Health Organization (WHO) states that in the case of extreme obesity, life expectancy can be reduced by up to 14 years and warns that, on a global scale, one in eight people has obesity, a condition that since the Since the 1990s, it has more than doubled among adults.
On the eve of March 4, World Day against Obesity, and during the presentation of Mexico’s Practical Clinical Guide for the Management of Overweight and Obesity in Adults, Sifuentes Osornio stressed that to confront this problem it is not enough just feel like it
individually, because it is also an issue that concerns all sectors. Only in the case of the country, he assured, This problem affects practically all Mexican families.
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Data from the latest versions of the National Health and Nutrition Survey (Ensanut) indicate that obesity in adults since the beginning of the millennium has increased 13.4 percent and type 2 diabetes has increased 12.7. In the case of obesity, in 2000 23.7 percent of adults had it and by 2022, 37. Diabetes went from 5.7 to 18.4 percent, that is, it increased more than three times.
The WHO and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) indicate that, globally, in 2024 more than 800 million adults were living with diabetes, that is, the number quadrupled compared to 1990.
The expert also highlighted the increase in metabolic syndrome, a condition characterized, he explained, by increased cholesterol, evidence of inflammation in blood tests and a slight increase in glucose, which is closely linked to weight gain. It is estimated that about 36 million adults in the country experience it.
Heavy load
He explained that obesity not only implies health effects, but also generates significant monetary costs.
The study The heavy burden of obesity
prepared by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), states that between 2020 and 2025 obesity and its related diseases would result in an average annual reduction in the Gross Domestic Product of 3.3 percent in the countries that make up the organization. and a significant burden on family budgets, with a figure of 360 US dollars per year per capita.
