Obesity Will Affect One-Half of Adults, One-Third of Youth Worldwide by 2050

"No country to date has successfully curbed the rising rates of adult overweight and obesity."

Overweight or obesity will affect more than half of adults worldwide and nearly one-third of children and adolescents by the year 2050, according to findings of a new analysis from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study BMI Collaborators, published online March 3, 2025 in The Lancet.

Authors of the study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, estimated the prevalence of overweight and obesity among individuals aged 25 years and older by age and sex for 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2021. The baseline data from which they made projections for 2050 showed that in 2021, 1 billion men and 1.11 billion women had obesity and overweight. There were 3.71 million deaths and 129 million disability-adjusted life-years attributable to the disease in 2021.

The GBD 2021 Adult BMI Collaborators call the global economic ramifications "staggering." Total direct and indirect costs associated with obesity in 2019, ranged from $3.19 billion in low-income countries to approximately 1.3 trillion in high-income countries. The team cites forecasting that estimates the potential for a 2.9% reduction in global gross domestic product, equal to a loss of $4 trillion.

Understanding current status and forecasting future trajectories is essential to drive long-term policy planning. The GBD 2021 Adult BMI Collaborators state that their "forecast scenario offers an outlook based on the assumption that trends in overweight and obesity, as well as changes in policies and interventions, will continue according to their historical pace."

The slides above offer a snap shot of some of the most compelling data. For the full study detail, data, and commentary, please see:

Global, regional, and national prevalence of child and adolescent overweight and obesity, 1990–2021, with forecasts to 2050: a forecasting study for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021:  http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)00397-6/fulltext

Global, regional, and national prevalence of adult overweight and obesity, 1990–2021, with forecasts to 2050: a forecasting study for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021:  http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)00355-1/fulltext