Overweight – Obesity in Colombia – Editorial – Opinion

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than four million people die each year in the world because of obesity and overweight. These figures might not be prepared if it was the avoidance of these conditions. And more and more evidence shows that all the previous projections of the damage that this represents were overwhelming.

For the sample is that one-third of the world's population (more than 2.2 billion people) is overweight, and 600 million adults and more than 120 million people. Children are part of obesity, with the disadvantage that most of them live in developing regions facing the drama of malnutrition.

Colombian reality is not better. According to data from the third national survey on the nutritional situation in Colombia-2015 (Ensin), 27% of the adult population is overweight and 19% are already suffering from obesity. In other words, the 57 per center Colombians present the problem.

The serious thing is that these conditions increase by 10 points every five years, which places the country in a more disturbing perspective in terms of public health.

To confirm this, it is sufficient to see that 45.9% of people in this situation in 2005 went to 51.2% in 2010. A simple projection of these figures allows us to deduct that, if this continues so, before 15 years the country would be on the roof of this problem on the continent, where Mexico and the United States are already.

And the question takes more disturbing dimensions when one observes that Bogotá, with the According to an analysis of the Department of Health (SDS), 55.2% of the population is overweight, and many of them already suffer from the improvement of health conditions and income of the country. Morbid obesity, with all the implicit health burden in such a condition.

And although there are genetic factors, the truth Most of these findings are related to poor eating habits, a sedentary lifestyle and factors mistakenly related to the industrial availability of 39, processed foods, sugary drinks and a culture of high calorie consumption.

children under five put the country above the world average and that at least one in four children already has the problem, the situation becomes dramatic, without neglecting that this harm costs the world, directly,, 8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Such a scenario, repeated analysis, urgently requires serious policies with concrete short-term goals, to change A dangerous trend. Here no one can turn their backs because actions are needed to engage all sectors, with the leadership of a government that understands that much of the country's development is lost by these causes.

Hopefully the new leaders and Congress will consider that the frontal attack against overweight and obesity should be framed in a state policy. This does not give any expectation.

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