The Prevalence of Obesity and Its Implications in China: A Narrative Review of Literature

OBJECTIVES: With the rapid economic growth and fast changing lifestyle in the past decades, obesity has become the major public health problem in China. It is known that obesity is not only a disease but also a major risk factor of various chronic diseases. This literature review aims to identify the prevalence trend of obesity in China with the Chinese diagnostic criteria, in terms of the resulting impacts on correlative chronic diseases.

METHODS: A comprehensive literature review was conducted searching through PubMed, CNKI and Wan Fang to identify studies about the epidemiology of obesity and its influence on the risks of chronic diseases in China.

RESULTS: In China, the prevalence of obesity increased from 3.6%, 1.8% and 1.6% in 1992 to 16.4%, 7.9% and 3.6% in 2019 for adults, adolescents and children, respectively. Thus, it is estimated to be 182.5 million obese adults, 15.9 million obese adolescents and 3.4 million obese children currently in mainland China with Chinese diagnostic criteria. Comprehensively comparing eight included literature which reported the strong association between high body mass index (BMI) and chronic diseases, the odds ratio (OR) of diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and coronary heart disease ranged between 2.19~3.99, 3.07~5.22, 3.07~3.74, and 1.74~4.12 in obese adults, while 1.55~2.37, 1.51~2.35, 2.16-2.39, and 1.33~1.49 in overweight adults, respectively. All those obesity-related chronic diseases increased relative mortality and posed a substantial economic burden in China.

CONCLUSIONS: Obesity became increasingly prevalent in the past decades and significantly increased the risk of chronic diseases, which associated with worse patient outcomes and a greater disease burden, suggesting an urgent need to raise disease awareness, develop more effective prevention measures and treatment options for obesity in China.