Epidemiology and health implications of obesity, with special reference to African populations

In all populations, developed and developing, in young and old, rural and urban, obesity is increasing. Costs of treatments are enormous, and level of success dishearteningly low; moreover, long‐term benefits from weight reduction are limited. In Africa, when rural populations lived traditionally there was very little gain in weight with age. However, with transitional changes occurring, as in South Africa, especially in urban dwellers, obesity has become common, affecting nearly half of African women. However, the usual metabolic and other sequelae of obesity appear less noxious than such in white women. Outwardly, the outlook for the reduction of obesity in African women appears hopeless, since such populations now seek to emulate in all respects the life‐style of the white population. The primary public health motivation in African populations, as in western populations, should be to lessen excessive weight gain during growth and thereafter.