title: The Epidemiology of Obesity: A Big Picture.
abstract: The epidemic of overweight and obesity presents a major challenge to chronic disease prevention and health across the life course around the world. Fueled by economic growth, industrialization, mechanized transport, urbanization, an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, and a nutritional transition to processed foods and high-calorie diets over the last 30 years, many countries have witnessed the prevalence of obesity in its citizens double and even quadruple. A rising prevalence of childhood obesity, in particular, forebodes a staggering burden of disease in individuals and healthcare systems in the decades to come. A complex, multifactorial disease, with genetic, behavioral, socioeconomic, and environmental origins, obesity raises the risk of debilitating morbidity and mortality. Relying primarily on epidemiologic evidence published within the last decade, this non-exhaustive review discusses the extent of the obesity epidemic, its risk factors-known and novel-, sequelae, and economic impact across the globe.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, USA, ahruby@hsph.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Adela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hruby
authors.forename: Frank B
authors.initials: FB
authors.lastname: Hu
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D017281:Cost of Illness; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D006801:Humans; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D009765:Obesity / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors