Nine out of ten coronavirus deaths have occurred in countries with high levels of obesity, according to research supported by the World Health Organization, which explains the strong link between being overweight and losing lives to the disease.
The World Obesity Federation (WOF) study, which represents scientists, medical professionals and researchers from more than 50 regional and national obesity associations, showed that the death rate was ten times higher where at least 50 percent of the population was overweight.
It provides fresh insight into why people in some countries die much stronger after contracting the virus than in others.
Age is seen as the biggest predictor of serious outcomes, which has led to older people being preferred in the Covid-19 vaccines in most countries. But the WOF said its report ‘shows for the first time that overweight population is a second place’. It now calls for this group to be given preference for vaccination.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the report “should serve as a wake-up call to governments worldwide” to tackle obesity.
An analysis of both the latest death rates from Johns Hopkins University and the WHO Global Health Observatory data on obesity showed that 2.2 million of the 2.5 million deaths worldwide were in countries with high obesity.
Scientists have tried to understand the difference in death rates between Asian and Western countries, as well as low-income and high-income countries. The WOF suggests that the discovery of the ‘common denominator’ of obesity is an important part of the statement.
Tim Lobstein, senior policy adviser to the WOF and author of the report, said death rates were ten times higher in countries where more than 50 percent of the population was overweight. The increase in national mortality rates where countries exceeded the threshold of 50 percent of the overweight population was ‘dramatic’.
The report, which was released on Thursday before World Obesity Day, found no single example of a country where less than 40 percent of the population was overweight with high mortality rates. On the other hand, no country with a high mortality rate – at least 100 per 100,000 – has overweighted less than 50 percent of its population.
Vietnam, for example, has the lowest recorded death rate in the world and the second lowest level of overweight people: just 0.04 per 100,000 deaths due to Covid-19 and 18.3 percent of adults overweight, according to WHO data.
In contrast, the United Kingdom has the third highest mortality rate in the world and the fourth highest obesity rate, with 184 deaths per 100,000 and 63.7 percent of adults overweight. This is followed by the US with about 152 deaths per 100,000 and nearly 68 percent obese.
Tedros said: “The link between obesity and Covid-19 mortality is clear and compelling.” Investment in public health and coordinated, international action were needed to tackle the causes of obesity, he added as ‘one of the best ways for countries to build resilience in health systems after pandemics’.
Lobstein, visiting professor at the University of Sydney and a former WHO adviser, said that despite many UN targets, governments could not tackle obesity for many years. Yet Covid-19 was only the latest infection exacerbated by weight issues: “We have seen it in the past with Mers, H1N1 and other respiratory diseases,” he added.
The report also provided an economic argument for action to control obesity, saying that the cost of shutting down communities to prevent the overrun of health services could be significantly reduced if governments faced pandemic problems with the weight of tackled the population ‘.
Of the $ 28 tons the IMF predicted as the global cost of lost economic production by 2025, “at least $ 6 tons will be directly attributed to the issue of overweight populations,” he argued.