It is reported that more than 1.9 billion of the world’s elderly population are overweight people, of which 650 million suffer from obesity, according to Ms. Shanti Gunawardena, Deputy Director of the National Diabetes Center, Community Medicine Specialist.
World Obesity Day is celebrated every year on 04th March i.e. today.
Mrs. Shanti Gunawardena, community medical expert, has expressed these views while commenting on that.
“The importance of this is that, as everyone knows, fat is a better word than obesity. This obesity is now emerging as a big problem. Due to this, the number of diseases has also increased. There are 1.9 billion overweight people in the world. There are 650 million suffering from obesity. Taking that, 39.% of the world’s population is overweight and 13% of them are obese.”
Mrs. Dr. Shanti Gunawardena has said that this situation is seen in this country as well.
“If we take the situation in Sri Lanka, the Ministry of Health, together with the World Health Organization, conducts a test every 5 years to identify the risk groups underlying non-communicable diseases. There, when we look at overweight and obese people, we see an increase compared to 2015. In 2015, 24% of men aged 18-69 were overweight and obese. It has increased to 30% by 2021. At the same time, the figure of 34% of women in 2015 has increased to 46.7% in 2021. What is special about this is that obesity increases the risk of developing non-communicable diseases.”