This section assesses progress towards three additional global nutrition targets endorsed by the World Health Assembly (WHA): exclusive breastfeeding, low birthweight and adult obesity.
The latest data available on adult obesity are from 2016. That year, in comparison with 2010, the prevalence of adult obesity rose from 11.2 percent to 13.1 percent worldwide and from 20.8 percent to 23.3 percent in the ECA region (Figure 15). The growing trend is even more striking in the ECA subregions, where the prevalence is consistently above global levels. It was above 20 percent in all ECA subregions except Central Asia in 2016. The most affected by this form of malnutrition were the EU27 and the United Kingdom (22.9 percent), CIS Europe and Ukraine (23.3 percent) and the rest of ECA countries (31.5 percent).
All the high-income countries in the ECA region (especially countries in the European Union and the EFTA) have a high prevalence of adult obesity that is well above the global prevalence. But adult obesity also affects low- and middle-income countries. Table A-9 shows that at least one in four adults was obese in Bulgaria (25 percent), Ireland (25.3 percent), Czechia (26 percent), Israel (26.1 percent), Lithuania (26.3 percent), Hungary (26.4 percent), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (27.8 percent) and Malta (28.9 percent). In Türkiye, almost one in three adults is obese (32.1 percent). A lower prevalence of obesity among adults in the ECA region is found in Central Asian countries: Kyrgyzstan (16.6 percent), Uzbekistan (16.6 percent) and Tajikistan (14.1 percent). However, countries in Central Asia had larger increases in the prevalence of adult obesity from 2000 to 2016 (77.5 percent in Tajikistan, 72.9 percent in Kyrgyzstan, 69.4 percent in Uzbekistan and 69.1 percent in Turkmenistan).
As shown in Table A-10, overall in the ECA region, women had a higher prevalence of obesity than did men in 2000. However, from 2000 to 2016, the prevalence of obesity rose much faster among men than among women, nearly eliminating the difference between women and men.
In all subregions and in all countries of the ECA region, men are experiencing higher increase rates of adult obesity than women. However, significant gender differences remain in the prevalence of obesity by subregion. In 2016, women in Central Asia and the Caucasus had much higher prevalence of obesity than men. This difference was much smaller in ETFA countries, and women actually had a lower prevalence of obesity in the EU27 and the United Kingdom in 2016.
For 8 of 53 countries, women had a lower prevalence of obesity than men in 2000. However, all 53 countries reported (Table A-10) that men had a higher increase in the prevalence of obesity than women from 2000 to 2016. As a result, the gap between women and men from 2000 to 2016 was reduced significantly in all countries, in particular in CIS Europe and Ukraine. In 2016, women in 25 of 53 countries had a lower prevalence of obesity than men.
The following countries had a much higher prevalence of adult obesity among women than among men in 2016: Türkiye (60.7 percent higher), Azerbaijan (49.4 percent higher), the Russian Federation (48.6 percent higher), Tajikistan (44.0 percent higher), Uzbekistan (37.7 percent higher), Armenia (34.5 percent higher), Kyrgyzstan (32.9 percent higher), Turkmenistan (31.4 percent higher), and the Republic of Moldova (30.2 percent higher).