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Chapter 3 Additional World Health Assembly nutrition indicators

Key messages
  • As of 2016 (the latest year for which data are available), adult obesity was on the rise in all subregions and all countries in the ECA region. The regional prevalence of obesity is well above the global prevalence of 13.1 percent in 2016.
  • Based on sex-disaggregated analyses, women had a much higher prevalence of obesity than male adults in 2000 in the ECA region. However, from 2000 to 2016, the prevalence of adult obesity rose much faster among males (52.2 percent increase) than among women (27.7 percent increase). By 2016, the difference between women and men in the prevalence of obesity was reduced (21.8 percent for men and 22.6 percent for women).
  • Significant gender differences remain in the prevalence of adult obesity by subregion. In 2016, women in Central Asia and the Caucasus had a much higher prevalence of obesity than men (31.9 percent higher and 35.1 percent higher, respectively). This difference was much smaller in the EFTA subregion (9.4 percent higher), and women had a lower prevalence of obesity in the EU27 and the United Kingdom in 2016.
  • From 2012 to 2020, the global prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding increased from 37 percent to 44 percent worldwide. The ECA region has made significant progress in exclusive breastfeeding, but the prevalence remains below the global average. Data on ECA subregions show that from 2012 to 2020, the prevalence significantly increased in Central Asia (from 29.2 percent to 44.6 percent), the Caucasus (from 24.1 percent to 31.1 percent) and in the Western Balkans (from 20.2 percent to 26.7 percent).
  • The global prevalence of low birthweight declined at a slow pace from 2000 (17.5 percent) to 2015 (14.6 percent). Although the data for the ECA region are incomplete, the regional trend seems to have followed the same slow pattern, with a prevalence of about half the world average but with a marginal decline, from 7 percent in 2012 to 6.9 percent in 2015.