NEWS AND VIEWS

13 May 2026

Trajectories of obesity prevalence over the past 45 years reveal patterns of growth, plateau and decline that differ across high-, middle- and low-income countries.

By

Boyd Swinburn Boyd Swinburn is in the School of Population Health, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand.

Obesity is a pandemic, meaning that its prevalence has been increasing in almost every country over the past few decades. As might be expected, some countries experienced this rise earlier than others; in some, the increase has been rapid, and in others, slow; and the obesity rate is flattening in certain countries while accelerating in others.…