LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2023: Statistics and Trends

This section assesses progress towards three additional WHA endorsed targets, i.e. adult obesity, exclusive breastfeeding and low birthweight.

3.1 ADULT OBESITY

Overweight and obesity are defined as above normal body weight for height as a result of excessive fat accumulation. According to the WHO, at the population level obesity in adults is determined as having a body mass index (BMI)¹¹ equal to or greater than 30 kg/m² (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO, 2022). ¹¹ The body mass index (BMI) is a simple indicator of the relationship between weight and height that is frequently used to identify overweight and obesity in adults. It is calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilos by the square of their height in metres (kg/m²).

Overweight and obesity both have immediate and potentially long-term health impacts. Immediate impacts include respiratory difficulties, increased risk of fractures, hypertension, early markers of cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, and psychological effects. Furthermore, long-term impacts are also linked to increased risk of non-communicable diseases (WHO, 2014b).

In Latin America and the Caribbean, obesity affected 24.2 percent of the adult population in 2016 (equivalent to 106 million people), which was significantly above the world estimate (13.1 percent). Obesity in adults rose considerably across all subregions between 2000 and 2016, increasing by 9.5 percentage points in the Caribbean, 8.2 percentage points in Mesoamerica, and 7.2 percentage points in South America. Among the subregions, Mesoamerica showed the highest prevalence of obesity in adults (27.3 percent), followed by the Caribbean (24.7 percent) and South America (23 percent) (FIGURE 18).

During the period from 2000 to 2016, obesity in adults increased in all countries of the region. The prevalence in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Haiti increased by more than 10 percentage points in this period. Furthermore, the Bahamas registered one of the highest rates of obesity in adults in 2016 with a prevalence of more than 30 percent. In addition, obesity affected more than 25 percent of adults in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Suriname and Uruguay (FIGURE 19).^{12 12} See Table 26 of Annex I.