The paradox: Rural people are more obese than urban people

We unconsciously consider urban lifestyle as a cause for modern people to gain weight . But this concept does not seem right anymore, because overweight also occurs righteously in people living in rural areas, even at a faster rate. That is the result of a large study lasting from 1985 to 2017.

Mazid Ezzati - a public health specialist at Imperial University London, England and his colleagues analyzed more than 2000 studies of over 112 million adults in both rural and urban areas around the world. They established a correlation between BMI and the residence of the subjects studied.

Overweight also happens right in people living in rural areas.

There are 55% of people with BMI who are living in rural areas, including men and women. In which, more than 80% come from low or middle income areas.

With the above figures, the researchers were able to conclude that now the lifestyle of people in rural areas is no longer called healthy anymore when the obesity rate here is higher and higher. with the city. Most notable is in countries like Chile, Malaysia and Turkey, except for one case in sub-Saharan Africa.

What is the problem with this modern "rural" lifestyle?

To explain this sudden increase in navigation is not complicated. Along with the rise of the economy, rural areas in developing countries certainly have innovations that follow it.

Millions of people now have access to tap water (water supplied through water pipes) and energy to meet daily needs, including transportation. Therefore, it is not much more to have heavy physical labor from the burden of water to cut wood as before .

Heavy labor in the countryside gradually disappeared.

In industrial countries like the US or European countries, for example, the trend of increasing BMI in the countryside can be explained by infrastructure, food and lifestyle. Here, for example, they use cars more and more, but they do not have much access to sports conditions.

Or in other words, they are becoming "lazy" in physical activity. Besides, fresh and cheaper food turned out to be easier to find in the city center, instead of being rural.

Food prices in rural areas are not as cheap as cities.

According to the report "Obesity Situation 2018: the right policy for a healthier America" , the lack of knowledge about nutritional health and lack of physical activity is what many people suffer from. bad habits in life and ultimately lead to obesity.

What about Sub-Saharan Africa - a "representative" image for exceptional countries, contrary to the current trend? It can be understood simply, that rural areas are still poor, the main fuel source is still firewood, plus the lack of access to tap water. This requires manual labor to take place more and more every day, and the quality of food in the countryside is much more than in the city centers.

In Africa, manual labor must take place daily.

Even if researchers only focus on increasing rates instead of a specific number, they can still see that in the world powers the number of obese people living outside the city is higher than the inner city. .

The authors say they hope that this finding will help governments in making policies to prevent obesity, which is increasingly increasing.

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