Obesidade no Mundo e Brasil

Um problema crescente no mundo, a obesidade. Veja texto da Organizaçāo Mundial do Comércio -OECD
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Health: Obesity rising in developing countries, warns OECD
Under embargo until Thursday 11 November at 01.00 a.m. (Paris time)

10/11/2010 - Emerging economies should take immediate action to reverse the rising incidence of obesity before the problem reaches levels seen in the industrialized world, according to new OECD analysis published today in The Lancet.

The OECD report assesses obesity levels in six countries: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa. Unhealthy diets and physical inactivity are pushing obesity rates rapidly toward those seen in OECD countries, where half of the population is already overweight and one in six people is considered obese.

Results varied across countries surveyed. Seven in 10 Mexican adults are overweight or obese, while nearly half of all Brazilians, Russians and South Africans are also in this category. China and India report lower levels of obesity, but are also rapidly moving in the wrong direction, the OECD says.

Low-and middle-income countries have far fewer health care resources to deal with the consequences of obesity, which include higher rates of cardiac disease, cancer, diabetes and other serious health problems, according to the report.

The OECD strongly recommends that developing countries address the pending obesity epidemic now, as part of wider comprehensive health prevention strategies, rather than wait until the costs of treating obesity-related illness is much more expensive.

The annual cost of broad-based prevention strategies tackling obesity and other health threats, such as alcohol consumption, smoking, high blood pressure and cholesterol, would be less than USD 2 per-person per-year in India and China, less than USD 3 per-head in Brazil, and around USD 4 per-person in South Africa, Russia and Mexico.

The strategy should include mass media campaigns promoting healthier lifestyles, taxes and subsidies to improve diets, tighter government regulation of food labeling and restrictions on food advertising. Immediate implementation of this sort of comprehensive strategy would add 1 million years of life in good health to India’s health expectancy and 4 million years in China over the coming 20 years (at a cost of USD 270 in India and USD 380 in China per-year gained).

“A multiple intervention strategy would achieve substantially larger health gains than individual programs, with better cost-effectiveness,”said OECD health policy analyst and lead author Michele Cecchini.
The OECD says the strategy would pay for itself – through reduced health care costs – in half the countries surveyed, and would become cost-effective in the others within 15 years.

The report also addresses the growing incidence of childhood obesity in developing countries, which is lower than that seen in OECD countries, but also moving quickly in the wrong direction.
The OECD suggests countries take specific action to fight childhood obesity, particularly tougher regulation of food advertising directed at children.

The OECD report is available at: www.oecd.org/health/chronicdiseases.

Further information is available from Franco Sassi, Senior Health Economist, (Tel.: +33 1 45249239, e-mail: franco.sassi@oecd.org; or Michele Cecchini, Health Policy Analyst, (Tel.: +33 1 45247857, e-mail: michele.cecchini@oecd.org).