Mumbai: Obesity in India has increased extremely over the past 35 years, in tandem with increasing rates around the world, the new report emphasizes and the obesity management tools are not generally available to most patients.
According to the World Federation Federation report (WHF), obesity in adults globally four times since 1990.
In 2022, 878 million adults lived with obesity compared to 194 million in 1990.
The World Heart Report 2025 – Obenite and cardiovascular disease emphasizes the growing prevalence of obesity and gaps in approach to treatment around the world.
In India, obesity between women from 1990 to 2024 has grown at least seven times, with 10% of adult women over 20 years of age, about 44 million, living with obesity in the country.
Obesity among men has increased by 4.9% since 1990, now influenced by 26 million Indian men or 5% of the Indian male population.
India has twice as many obese women as men.
Obesity between children and young people – between age from 5 and 19 years – is also on the rise, the report warned.
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In India, 5.2 million or 3%, girls are obese, an increase of 3% since 1990. On the other hand, around 7.3 million or about 4% are boys obese, an increase of 3.7% since 1990.
Since the level of childhood obesity continues to increase, children with a high mass index (BMI) are 40% more likely that their peers suffer from cardiovascular disease in half of their lives. BMI helps to assess risk factors for certain health conditions.
The report stated that the advent of obesity at a younger age can significantly reduce life expectancy.
Gaps in treatment
Obesity is recognized as a disease, but there are still significant gaps in treatment around the world.
On the one hand, stigma and misunderstanding of obesity prevent people from adequate treatment. Systemic healthcook gaps combine the problem and contribute to the economic burden of impaired aggressive commercial practices of companies producing cheap, processed foods.
In India, access to specific managerial protocols is generally not available to most patients, dr. Prabhakaran Doorairaj, elected President of WhF and Executive Director of Chronic Disease Center in Nový Dilli.
“Obesity management, unlike, say, hypertension, is fragmented and highly heterogeneous. Most of them are focused on changing weight reduction behavior through dietary modifications and increased physical activity that is not sustainable in many cases,” he said.
Blockbuster weight loss drugs, such as Mounjaro Eli Lilly, available in the West, have only recently received consent in India, “but the approach would be limited to very little due to the high costs of these drugs,” Dorairaj. “In extreme cases, bariatric surgery is available, but in limited cities.”
Mounjaro, GLP-1, was started in India in March. Is still inaccessible for a large number of Indians on £17 500 per month for 5 mg dose.
GLP-1 drugs are a class of drugs that mimic a hormone similar to glucagon-1, which regulates the level of sugar and appetite to eat in the blood and is used to treat diabetes and obesity type 2.
However, drug sales rose – consumption tripled in April. According to Pharmarack Business Platform, Mounjaro announced sales £1.42 crore in March and £4.80 crore in April.
Since the dose is once a week, this may be tripled by an indicator of adherence to the dosing schedule.
Mounjaro is only the first in a row expected in India. Danish drug manufacturer Novo Nordisk is likely to announce this year’s launch of weight loss. Since his blockbuster molecule, Semaglutide, the patent leaves in 2026, Indian companies are ready to start generic copies for 90-95%.
Drugs market for weight loss is expected to increase as soon as prices fall.
However, interventions in public health care need to reduce the occurrence of obesity around the world.
“In order to address the crisis on assembly obesity in the world, governments must carry out cost effective public health measures that improve public awareness and reduce risk factors, recognize obesity as multifactorial and undertake to make available and available treatment options,” he said.
The cost of obesity
Obesity costs are not only economic; This also leads to higher mortality in susceptible individuals. Global death from cardiovascular disease associated with high BMI has more than doubled, the report emphasizes.
While cardiovascular disease already accounts for 25% of all deaths in India, 5.6% of these deaths can be attributed to high BMI. This has been an increase since 1990, when approximately 15% of all deaths came from cardiovascular diseases, of which 2.44% could be caused by high BMI.
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Again, Indian women are more likely to die of cardiovascular disease related to BMI. In men, 4.6% of all cardiovascular disease deaths can be attributed to high BMI, while in women almost 7% of all cardiovascular deaths can be attributed to high BMI.
According to the World Obesity Federation in 2019, the economic impact of overweight and obesity in India was estimated to be $ 28.95 billion in India. This corresponds to $ 21 per capita and 1% gross domestic product (GDP).
Economic impacts are expected to increase to $ 838.6 billion by 2060.
(Tagstotranslate) Obesity in India