NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, April 14, 2014

In 1950, the number of starving individuals on Earth was estimated to be around 700 million. At the time, obesity affected approximately 100 million people around the globe, primarily in rich countries.

These statistics have changed dramatically over the past six decades. As stated in today’s featured documentary, Globesity: Fat’s New Frontier, no low- to middle-income country has successfully managed to reduce hunger without shifting over into obesity, and very rapidly at that.

By 2010, the world’s hungry had marginally grown to 800 million, while the number of obese citizens of the world had ballooned to 500 million. The rate of “extreme obesity” (people with a BMI above 40) rose by 350 percent over the past few years alone in the US.