Experts sound alarm over obesity ‘epidemic’

MANILA, Philippines — Describing obesity as an “epidemic,” the Philippine Association for the Study of Overweight and Obesity (PASOO), Department of Health (DOH), National Nutrition Council, World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund yesterday sounded the alarm on the growing obesity in the Philippines.

At a press conference on the occasion of World Obesity Day, former PASOO president and endocrinologist Mia Fojas said one in three Filipinos is either obese or pre-obese, joining some 800 million people living with obesity worldwide.

“One in three Filipinos are either obese or pre-obese and that’s about 37.2 percent or 33.9 million Filipinos as of 2019,” Fojas said.

She underscored that the trend is on the rise as there were around 28 percent obese or pre-obese Filipinos prior to the 2019 survey.

“It is important for us to stress that obesity is not simply an aesthetic thing that you are fat, so it’s OK. It’s really a disease because you will have impaired functioning. It’s not being ‘matakaw’ or ‘tamad.’ It’s beyond that. It is a disease. Obesity is higher now because a lot of people have more access to unhealthy food, the fast food,” she added.

In a joint statement, the DOH and its attached agency, National Nutrition Council, said obesity places an individual more at risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some cancers.

They underscored that obesity has also emerged as “a major risk factor” for severe disease during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overweight and obese individuals are twice at risk to be hospitalized if they get infected with the virus.

“Obesity, which was once considered a problem primarily in high-income and developed countries, is now a rising health problem in low- and middle-income countries including the Philippines,” they said.

Data from the Department of Science and Technology’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute showed that for the past two decades, overweight and obesity among adults have almost doubled, from 20.2 percent in 1998 to 36.6 percent in 2019.

Similarly, the prevalence rates of overweight and obesity among adolescents have more than doubled from 4.9 percent in 2003 to 11.6 percent in 2018. “If no action is taken, overall rates of overweight and obesity will continue to rise,” they maintained.

Fojas also said there is an “epidemic of physical inactivity in the country” where people “just sit down, work and eat.”

A person could also be genetically predisposed to becoming fat but these processes are activated by “exposures to environmental changes like viruses and food intake.”