Don’t call it the “obesity pandemic.” That one-size-fits-all label no longer captures the diverse trajectories of weight gain around the world, a new report argues. In some countries rising obesity rates are slowing or even sliding downward, trajectories largely linked to the wealth of nations.
Looking instead at velocity to see not how far, but how fast obesity is rising — or not — revealed rates that continue to climb in most low- and middle-income countries, but are flattening in most high-income countries and possibly declining in a few of those more prosperous places.
