In Italy, 26.7% of children and teenagers aged between 3 and 17 years, therefore more than one in four people, are overweight, a condition that affects more than one teenager from three out of seven of the ten southern regions which is well above the national average, with Campania at 36.5% followed by Calabria (35.8%), Basilicata (35%) and Sicily (33.8%). In contrast, the lowest percentages were found in the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano (15.1% and 17.4%), in Friuli-Venezia Giulia (18.4%) and in Lombardy (19.5%). This is a photo that appears from the Tenth report on obesity in Italy, edited by Auxologico Irccs, presented at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University in Naples, created thanks to the work of about thirty Italian and foreign doctors and researchers.
“One of the biggest public health problems”
“Obesity is one of the main public health problems – said Health Minister Orazio Schillaci – and as the report shows, it also affects children. This is why it is important to take preventive measures, through a correct lifestyle.” According to the latest WHO estimates, adults with obesity will number 890 million (16%) and 2.5 billion will be overweight (43%) by 2022. Istat data from 2023 shows almost 23 million adults – almost half of the population over 18 years (46.3%) – who in Italy are overweight, that is, a body mass index equal to or greater than 25. Of these, around 5.8 million (equal to 11.8%) are affected by obesity, with a body mass index equal to or greater than 30. “In recent decades – we read in the Report – obesity has shown a steadily increasing growth rate at global level, until today it is considered a real epidemic, with all its implications for public health”. All this requires, the report further underlines, “an important commitment in terms of health and public spending”, because “metabolic syndrome that is not addressed and treated in a timely and appropriate manner in specialized health centers will inevitably lead to complications affecting almost all vital organs of patients suffering from obesity”.
Basic prevention
Therefore, it is very important to treat patients already affected by the pathology, but also to implement prevention and early diagnosis of the prodromes that can lead to severe obesity, with all the resulting changes and associated diseases. This is why prevention is so important. And “in this direction – adds Schillaci – are the activities of the Ministry of Health and the law that in Italy, the first in the world, recognizes obesity as a chronic disease, providing significant interventions in terms of prevention and treatment of obesity, but also for the special training of health workers”. “Obesity and eating disorders in general are a priority line of research and clinical intervention of our Ircc, which has now been operating for half a century – Auxologico president Mario Colombo underlines – unique in Italy for the clinical cases treated in its hospitals and territorial centers, which sees an expansion of presence in the Lazio Region and the Calabria Region in the near future”.
