Three percent of children under five years of age have been found to be obese in Nepal, a recent study carried out by Baliyo Nepal, a non-governmental organisation, shows.

The figure is over three times what was reported by the Nepal Demographic and Health Survey-2022 carried out by the Ministry of Health and Population, which indicated that only a percent of the children under five are overweight.

“What is concerning is that in Bagmati Province, the percentage of children of the said age group with obesity problems is higher compared to other provinces,” said Dr Atul Upadhyay, chief executive officer of Baliyo Nepal. “Our report shows 4.3 percent of children under five years of age are obese in Bagmati Province.”

Obesity has emerged as a major public health problem in Nepal, impacting not only children, but also adolescents and adults, according to studies.

According to the World Health Organisation, overweight is classified as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) equal to or greater than 25, while obesity is defined as having a BMI equal to or greater than 30.

The NDHS report shows that 35 percent of women and six percent of adolescent girls in the country are obese.

The problem is not only of Nepal but of many countries around the world, according to a new analysis published recently in The Lancet, a leading international medical journal.

The Lancet report shows that one in eight people in the world is living with obesity.

Worldwide, obesity rates among children and adolescents increased four times from 1990 to 2022, while obesity rates among adult women have more than doubled, even as the rates have tripled in men, according to the report.

“The total number of children, adolescents and adults worldwide living with obesity has surpassed one billion,” reads the report. “These trends, together with the declining prevalence of people who are underweight since 1990, make obesity the most common form of malnutrition in most countries.”

Researchers estimate that in total, 159 million children and adolescents, and 879 million adults were living with obesity in 2022. Between 1990 and 2022, the proportion of the world’s children and adolescents who were underweight fell by around a fifth in girls and more than a third in boys. The proportion of the world’s adults who were underweight more than halved over the same period.

Obesity and underweight are both forms of malnutrition and are detrimental to people’s health in many ways. The latest study provides a highly detailed picture of global trends in both forms of malnutrition over the last 33 years.

“It is very concerning that the epidemic of obesity that was evident among adults in much of the world in 1990 is now mirrored in school-aged children and adolescents,” the Lancet report quoted senior Professor Majid Ezzati, of Imperial College London, as saying.

“At the same time, hundreds of millions are still affected by undernutrition, particularly in some of the poorest parts of the world. To successfully tackle both forms of malnutrition it is vital we significantly improve the availability and affordability of healthy, nutritious foods.”

The new study was conducted by the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO). Researchers analysed weight and height measurements from over 220 million people aged five years or older (63 million people aged five to 19 years, and 158 million aged 20 years or older), representing more than 190 countries.

More than 1,500 researchers contributed to the study, which looked at body mass index (BMI) to understand how obesity and underweight have changed worldwide from 1990 to 2022.

The World Health Organization said that many low- and middle-income countries like Nepal are now facing a ‘double burden’ —under-nutrition as well as a rapid upsurge in obesity-related cases, particularly in the urban areas.

The UN health agency said children in low- and middle-income countries are more vulnerable to prenatal, infant, and young child inadequate nutrition. At the same time, it said that children are being exposed to high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt, energy-dense, and micronutrient-poor foods, which tend to be not only low in terms of cost, but also in nutrient quality.

These dietary patterns, in conjunction with lower levels of physical activity, result in sharp increases in childhood obesity.