The rise in obesity has been attributed to poor eating habits in the country closely related to the availability of fast food since the 1970s, sedentary lifestyles and a decrease in the labour workforce.
Many Australians are overweight or obese. This puts them at higher risk of developing chronic conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease. Find out what we're doing to reduce and prevent overweight and obesity in Australia.
The conditioning variables are demographic, economic, social, and lifestyle related, and many have been included in studies elsewhere [16,17,18].
Obesity affects children as well as adults. Many factors can contribute to excess weight gain including eating patterns, physical activity levels, and sleep routines. Social determinants of health, genetics, and taking certain medications also play a role.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics' National Health Survey from 2017–18 revealed that 67 per cent of Australian adults were overweight or obese (12.5 million people), an increase from 63.4 per cent since 2014-15. If the current trend continues, more than 18 million Australians will be overweight or obese by 2030.
Obesity is generally caused by eating too much and moving too little. If you consume high amounts of energy, particularly fat and sugars, but do not burn off the energy through exercise and physical activity, much of the surplus energy will be stored by the body as fat.
The main drivers of the global obesity epidemic are well known: excessive fat and sugar intake, lack of sleep, too much screen time, insufficient physical activity. We need global measures across all age groups to address these elements and we need them now.
The simple explanation for the global rise in obesity is that people are eating more high-calorie, high-fat foods and are less physically active. Highly processed foods — with added sugar, salt, and artificial ingredients — are often cheaper, easier to ship, and have a longer shelf life than fresh foods.
Therefore, the most common causes of obesity are overeating and physical inactivity. Ultimately, body weight is the result of genetics, metabolism, environment, behavior, and culture: Genetics. A person is more likely to develop obesity if one or both parents are obese.
Many factors influence body weight-genes, though the effect is small, and heredity is not destiny; prenatal and early life influences; poor diets; too much television watching; too little physical activity and sleep; and our food and physical activity environment.
Non-Hispanic Black adults (49.9%) had the highest age-adjusted prevalence of obesity, followed by Hispanic adults (45.6%), non-Hispanic White adults (41.4%) and non-Hispanic Asian adults (16.1%).
While being overweight is a precursor to obesity and, like obesity, can increase the risk of diabetes, heart attack and stroke, it's also possible to be overweight and still healthy, especially if you're free from chronic diseases like hypertension or diabetes.
The prevalence of obesity changed relatively little during the 1960s and 1970s, but it increased sharply over the ensuing decades—from 13.4% in 1980 to 34.3% in 2008 among adults and from 5% to 17% among children during the same period.
Since 2006, genome-wide association studies have found more than 50 genes associated with obesity, most with very small effects. Several of these genes also have variants that are associated with monogenic obesity, a phenomenon that has been observed in many other common conditions.
Tasmania had the highest rate of adults who were overweight or obese (70.9%), compared with Australian Capital Territory (64.0%) who had the lowest.
The complex interplay of socio-environmental factors that contribute to obesity are well known and include prolonged financial stress associated with food insecurity, urbanisation, substandard and overcrowded housing, and lack of adequate access to health services.
When comparing the proportion of obese men and women across OECD countries, Australia had the 2nd highest proportion of obese men (32%), behind the United States (38%). The proportion of obese women in Australia was 8th highest out of 23 countries (29%)—higher than the OECD average of 25% for women.
Top 10 Least Obese Countries in the World
When looking at average BMI, three countries tie for the least obese country in the world, with an average BMI of 21.1: Madagascar, Eritrea, and Ethiopia.
In 2021, black adults had the highest obesity rates of any race or ethnicity in the United States, followed by American Indians/Alaska Natives and Hispanics. As of that time, around 44 percent of all black adults were obese. Asians/Pacific Islanders had by far the lowest obesity rates.