OBESITY 3 BILLION 2030
Obesity: 2.5 billion in 2025, as called in 2021. Next stop 3 billion.
Key figures
The 2021 call, on stage: 2 billion overweight or obese in 2020, gyms closed, McDonald's open, 2.5 billion by 2025.
The receipt: WHO counts 2.5 billion adults overweight and 890 million obese, over 1 billion people now live with obesity, double 1990.
My 2030 call: 3 billion people overweight or obese by 2030, more than 1 in 3 humans on earth, while fast food grows to $1.2 trillion.
The fuel: sugar from a couple of pounds a year 2 centuries ago to 60 pounds today, a nugget with 30+ ingredients, a patty from 100 anonymous cattle.
In 2021, on stage, I said something that made the room shift in their seats: "If McDonald's stays open while gyms close, that might be the real pandemic. We already have 1 billion people living in poverty and 2 billion overweight or obese. Lock people up for another year and feed them fast food, and by 2025 we hit the sick number of 2.5 billion." Nobody wanted to hear it.
It landed. The WHO counts 2.5 billion adults overweight and 890 million obese. Over 1 billion people now live with obesity, double the number of 1990. Obesity kills more people than hunger. The real pandemic did not need a virus.
The cause is a business model, not a lack of willpower. Ultra-processed food is engineered to be craved, priced so low that saying no feels expensive, and sold to kids with $2 billion a year in McDonald's advertising alone. Sugar went from a couple of pounds a year to 60 pounds. At that dose it is a poison, and fast food is its delivery system.
My next call: 3 billion people overweight or obese by 2030. More than 1 in 3 humans on earth, on the same trajectory, with fast food at $1.2 trillion. My fight: solve poverty so people can afford real food, and protect the farmers who grow it. A world without farmers eats from the lab.