Skyrocketing obesity in children: why everybody should be concerned?

Nearly 400 million children around the world are projected to live with obesity by 2035. Worryingly, that is double the number in 2020. 'Our children are increasingly growing up in environments that make it very difficult for them to eat well and be active. This is a root cause of the obesity epidemic', argued Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, Regional Director for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Europe. Worryingly, child obesity often carries through to adolescence and is likely to endure into adulthood. Based on current trends and looking exclusively at obesity in the WHO European region, which covers 53 countries across Europe and Central Asia, the World Obesity Atlas 2023 projects that between 2020 and 2035, there will be a 61 % increase in the number of boys living with obesity and a 57 % increase in the number of girls living with obesity. A total of 17 million boys and 11 million girls aged 5-19 in the region will be living with obesity in 2035.