Almost a quarter of people in the world will be obese by 2045

New research from various cities in the world presented at this year's European Congress on Obesity in Vienna, Austria (23-26 May) demonstrate that if current trends continue, almost a quarter (22%) of the people in the world will be obese by 2045 (up from 14% in 2017), and one in eight (12%) will have type 2 diabetes (up from 9% in 2017).

The study presented by Dr Alan Moses of Novo Nordisk Research and Development, Søborg, Denmark and Niels Lund of Novo Nordisk Health Advocacy, Bagsværd, Denmark and colleagues from the Steno Diabetes Centre, Gentofte, Denmark, and University College London, UK, also indicates that in order to prevent the prevalence of type 2 diabetes from going above 10% in 2045, global obesity levels must be reduced by 25%.

In 2014, these three institutions collaborated to launch the Cities Changing Diabetes programme to accelerate the global fight against urban diabetes. The program began with eight cities: Copenhagen, Rome, Houston, Johannesburg, Vancouver, Mexico City, Tianjin, Shanghai. These have since been joined by a further seven cities: Beijing, Buenos Aires, Hangzhou, Koriyama, Leicester, Mérida and Xiamen. The programme has established local partnerships in these 15 cities to address the social factors and cultural determinants that can increase type 2 diabetes vulnerability among people living in their cities.

The startling projections globally are that, based on current trends obesity prevalence worldwide will rise from 14% in 2017 to 22% in 2045. Diabetes prevalence will increase from 9.1% to 11.7% across the same period, placing further massive strain on health systems which already spend huge sums just to treat diabetes.

"Despite the challenge all countries are facing with obesity and diabetes, the tide can be turned - but it will take aggressive and coordinated action to reduce obesity and individual cities should play a key role in confronting the issues around obesity, some of which are common to them all and others that are unique to each of them" says Dr Moses.