Research
Energy balance
The global rise in excess body weight, defined as BMI ≥ 25 kg/m², has led to a more than 6-fold increase in the number of obese adults (from 100 million to 671 million) between 1975 and 2016, driven by changes in the global food system and reduced physical activity.
The environment around you is designed to promote weight gain through easy access to cheap, energy-dense food and less physical activity. Recognizing this external pressure helps remove shame and shifts the focus to actionable strategies: choosing nutrient-dense foods and finding ways to move more, even in sedentary environments.
StrongSupportsVERY_HIGH confidence
These changes, combined with population growth, resulted in a more than 6-fold increase in the number of obese adults, from 100 to 671 million.
Why this rating
Based on large-scale global data from the Noncommunicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration.
Source
Global patterns in excess body weight and the associated cancer burden
Hyuna Sung et al. · CA A Cancer Journal for Clinicians · 2018
DOI 10.3322/caac.21499
narrative_reviewCited 561×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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