Abstract
Two papers were extracted and pooled data from published sources were used to estimate the distribution of BMI values for adults living in many countries around the world. The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration and the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 presented data for 200 and 188 countries, respectively. We extracted estimates from the two datasets for the prevalences of overweight and obesity in 28 Western countries. The two studies used similar methodology for extracting and pooling data, however the papers show serious discrepancies in several countries. Our analysis reveals the need for increased standardization of the identification and analysis of surveys of BMI distribution. This is necessary in order to facilitate comparability of study results and accurate global monitoring of obesity trends. Our findings also indicate that if findings from Western countries contain serious discrepancies, then findings from middle-income and low-income countries will likely have a poor level of accuracy as far fewer surveys of BMI distribution have been carried out.
References
NCD Risk Factor Collaboration. Trends in adult body-mass index in 200 countries from 1975 to 2014: a pooled analysis of 1698 population-based measurement studies with 19·2 million participants. Lancet. 2016;387:1377–9.
Ng M, Fleming T, Robinson M, Thomson B, Graetz N, Margono C, et al. Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. Lancet. 2014;384:766–81.
Freedman DS, Lawman HG, Skinner AC, McGuire LC, Allison DB, Ogden CL. Validity of the WHO cutoffs for biologically implausible values of weight, height, and BMI in children and adolescents in NHANES from 1999 through 2012. Am J Clin Nutr. 2015;102:1000–6.
Freedman DS, Lawman HG, Pan L, Skinner AC, Allison DB, McGuire LC, et al. The prevalence and validity of high, biologically implausible values of weight, height and BMI among 8.8 million children. Obesity (Silver Spring, Md). 2016;24:1132–9.
Connor Gorber SC, Shields M, Tremblay MS, McDowell I. The feasibility of establishing correction factors to adjust self-reported estimates of obesity. Health Rep. 2008;19:71–84.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Temple, N.J., Conklin, A. Prevalence of overweight and obesity in Western countries: discrepancies in published estimates. Eur J Epidemiol 34, 711–713 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-019-00503-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-019-00503-8