Obesity

1. Societal trend

Obesity is no longer surprise issue in our society even though the number of over weight people are keep growing rapidly. Many international organizations and governments are keep informing and warning about obesity, but the symptoms has been globalized. 

Chart 1. Obesity and overweight persons by OECD country (Robb,2010)

Chart 1 shows that majority of countries have overweight problems. Except 4 countries, about half and more adults in other counties are overweight.  Mexico and United States(U.S) have the most overweight and obesity adults in this chart. Especially 34 percents of U.S adults are obesity which is very serious. On the other hand, Korea and Japan are lowest countries among OECD countries. * India, Indonesia, China, Brazil, Russia,Estonia, South Africa are not member of OECD *  

U.S, New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom (U.K), Canada, and Ireland which 'English -speaking counties' are high ranked in this chart. It can be explained that similar culture and life style may influence to others.  U.K is the highest obesity country in Europe. New Zealand and Australia could get influence from U.K. Mexico which is the second highest obesity country is special case. Although language and culture are different from English-speaking countries, Mexico is adjoined to U.S, so they may influenced a lot foods and eating behavior from U.S.  Canada may have similar effect from U.S.

Third highest obesity country, New Zealand has a remarkable feature that obese people are concentrated on specific race.  Around 70 % of Pacific islanders are obese. This rate is twice more than European race and six times more than Asian people. It seems the life style and eating behavior of  various races reflects on this result. 

Chart 2. Proportion of population,15 years and over, who are obese (Statistics New Zealand,2014)

There are hundreds of TV shows and movies from U.S and it is very easy to see their life style. A number of fast-food, doughnut, and ice dream brands of U.S are advancing abroad. Normally these foods are high calories and containing huge amount of sugar or salt.  The other features of these foods are easy to take away and the price is cheap. Thus, these foods are everywhere and many people be tempted  easily. It means people living in other countries will have more opportunity to be obese like people in U.S. Chart 3 shows the future obesity rate.

Chart 3. Future obesity rate by OECD country (Robb,2010)

   

Every country will increase the number of obesity people in the future. In 2020, 75% people of U.S will be obese.  Even Korea which is the lowest will have around 35% of obesity in 2020.  

2. Impact the trend on society

Being obese brings a lot of bad effects to the human body. According to  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2013), overweight and obesity can cause various vessel diseases. High cholesterol in the blood vessel makes the vessel stiff and it causes damage on the surface of vessel. Fat in the cholesterol deposit onto the scar and eventually it narrows the vessel down.   

Chart 4 Coronary Artery Disease(CDC.2013)

It calls 'Coronary Artery Disease' (CAD). People who has CAD can have high blood pressure. Hypertension makes the heart to strain and it is very close to heart disease.

Not only CAD, obesity can brings other disease.  People who are overweight or obese have high risk for developing diabetes,cancers, stroke, liver and gallbladder disease, and sleeping breathing problems(CDC, 2013). 

In Korean, the number of people who are suffering from those disease are increasing rapidly. Chart 5 shows that  in 2013, about 1,288,000 of people visited hospital with  hyperlipidemia. Since 2008, the total patients number of hyperlipidemia has increased about twice. Many experts in Korea pointed the main reason for this trends is chaining life style and having lots of western foods.

 Chart 5. the number of hyperlipidemia in Korea (Yonhap news,2014)

Another serious impact from the obesity trend is childhood obesity. Every year the number of obese children is increasing fast. Even though many health and disease organizations, schools and governments try to reduce the rate of childhood obesity, it is not controlled in fact. This is one of our sad trends recently.  

Figure 1. Childhood obesity campaign poster (Hiskey, 2011)

References

Coronary artery disease. (2013). Retrieved from 

http://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/coronary_ad.htm

Hiskey,M(2011). A scary situation - the rise of chilhood obesity in Geogia. Retrieved from  http://saportareport.com/blog/2011/10/childrens-healthcare-seeking-to-reduce-childhood-obesity-in-georgia/

Obesity. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/nz-social-indicators/Home/Health/obesity.aspx

Robb, D (2010). World obesity stats - 2010 and beyond. Retrieved from http://www.hivehealthmedia.com/world-obesity-stats-2010/

The health effects of overweight and obesity. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/effects/

The number of hyperlipidemia in Korea. (2014). Retrieved from http://m.yna.co.kr/kr/contents/?cid=AKR20140606077500017&site=box_fav