Statsguru: Obesity, a pandemic in the making, may hit India hard by 2050

The number of Indian obese adults increased from 5.76 million in 1991 to 46.78 million in 2021; it is poised to reach 173.73 million by 2050

While addressing a rally recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed the alarming rise in obesity rates among Indians ‘scary’. Quoting a report which said roughly a third of Indians would suffer from obesity by 2050, Modi reiterated the importance of physical activity and urged people to cut down on edible oil consumption by 10 per cent.

 

According to a study published in the Lancet journal, overweight and obesity rates in adults (aged above 25) and children and adolescents (aged 5-24) more than doubled globally from 1990-2021. The number of Indian obese children and adolescents rose from 2.75 million in 1991