Worldwide obesity costs $2 Trillion a year: Study

Obesity is a serious concern across the globe, both from a health perspective as well as from a financial perspective. A whopping 2.1 billion people globally - or nearly 30 per cent of the world's population - are now overweight or obese, with the figure set to rise further by 2030, according to a study published Thursday.

Over the last decade no country in the world managed to trim its obesity prevalence. Some of the worst rates of obesity are now in the developing world, according to the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), which carried out the report.

"Obesity, which should be preventable, is now responsible for about 5 percent of all deaths worldwide," the report stated.

"Obesity is a major global economic problem caused by a multitude of factors," it said.

"Today obesity is jostling with armed conflict and smoking in terms of having the greatest human-generated global economic impact."

Smoking is considered the most expensive man-made burden on the economy with a cost of $2.1 trillion, followed closely by armed conflict.

The report identified 74 interventions that it argued will help tighten waistlines around the world.

The McKinsey report estimates the economic impact of obesity around the world at two trillion dollars a year. Part of that figure is the cost of caring for diseases that are linked to obesity, like Type 2 diabetes.

The McKinsey report says there's no single or simple solution to the problem, but global disagreement on how to move forward is hurting progress. The analysis is meant to offer a starting point on the elements of a possible strategy.

"We see our work on a potential program to address obesity as the equivalent of the maps used by 16th-century navigators," McKinsey said in its report. "Some islands were missing and some continents misshapen in these maps, but they were still helpful to the sailors of that era."