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SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS, France -- Over eating, sedentary lifestyles, cultural attitudes, and lack of prevention programmes are to blame for the rising epidemic of obesity in the Asia Pacific region. Overweight and obesity has quadrupled in China and societies still label people of healthy weight as poor.
Prevention was an important theme at the 19th Asian Pacific Congress of Cardiology held 21-24 February 2013 in Pattaya, Thailand. Experts from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) will lead a one-day collaborative programme on 23 February.
“In many of the countries in Asia Pacific the malnutrition problem nowadays is not undernutrition it is overnutrition, which has resulted in overweight and obesity,” said Professor Kui-Hian Sim, president-elect of the Asian Pacific Society of Cardiology.
“Asia Pacific has developed rapidly and technological advances mean that children now spend too much time on the internet and mobile devices so they don’t take up much physical activity. The Asian culture revolves around food as a way of showing hospitality because in the past there was a lot of famine. As a result there is a cultural perception that if you’re not fat or obese then you are not well off,” he added.
The Asia Pacific Cohort Studies Collaboration (APCSC) found that the prevalence of overweight and obesity among 14 countries in the Asia Pacific region varied considerably by country[1].The prevalence of obesity (BMI>30k/m2) in men ranged from 0.3% in India and 1.3% in Indonesia to 13.8% in Mongolia to 19.3% in Australia. In women the lowest rates were found in India (0.6%), China and Japan (both 3.4%) and the highest rates in Australia (22.2%) and Mongolia (24.6%).
However, Dr Rachel Huxley (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA), APCSC co-investigator, said these figures are only part of the overall picture. “Although the absolute prevalence of obesity in Australia was considerably higher than that of China and Japan, the relative increases in the prevalence over the last 20 years, has been much greater in these two Asian countries than in Australia,” she said.
The combined prevalence of overweight and obesity increased by 46% in Japan from 16.7% in 1976-1980 to 24% in 2000 and by 414% in China from 3.7% in 1982 to 19% in 2002.
The APCSC researchers also calculated the population attributable fraction for cardiovascular disease due to overweight and obesity in these 14 countries. For instance China, despite the relatively low prevalence of overweight and obesity, accounted for just over 3% of fatal coronary heart disease and 3.5% fatal ischemic stroke. At the other end of the scale, overweight and obesity accounted for nearly 8% of coronary heart disease in Mongolia and over 9% in Australia. It also accounted for nearly 9% of ischaemic stroke in Mongolia and more than 10% in Australia.