EDITORIAL July 18, 2024 July 18, 2024

Are we adequately training our healthcare providers facing the pandemic of obesity?

DOI: 10.20945/2359-4292-2024-0272

During the second part of the 20^th century, public health systems in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies have made enormous progress in curbing the mortality from infectious disease in both westernized and developing countries. However, the tremendous economic development after the second world war triggered another health epidemic linked to changes in lifestyle characterized by increasing availability of food and decreasing needs in occupational-related physical activity. As countries grow economically and healthcare improves, people live longer, but chronic conditions like obesity, insulin resistance, heart disease, diabetes and many forms of cancers become more common. This complex transition affects global health dynamics with infectious diseases being replaced by chronic diseases of aging now draining public health resources to treat them. In 2022, one in 8 people in the world were living with obesity (). The prevalence of adult obesity has more than doubled since 1990 and that in adolescents has quadrupled. Even more alarming, after the impressive progress in life expectancy during the 20^th century, it is now decreasing due to obesity and its associated diseases (). Alarmingly, in Asia and Africa, infectious diseases are being replaced by chronic diseases. This shift is of course tied to aging populations but importantly to economic developments across these regions. Many countries are presently facing a dual burden of undernutrition and overweight/obesity, both bankrupting public health resources ().

Several epidemiological and clinical studies have clearly identified three important lifestyles factors underlying health and disease: nutrition, physical activity levels, and sleep hygiene, all of which can accelerate or slow down the rate of biological aging. For centuries, we have known that nutrition can adversely impact health (many nutritional insufficiencies) but also improve it (balance nutrient rich diets). In the eyes of Hippocrates, an ancient Greek physician who lived around 400 BC, nutrition was recognized as an important factor in good health. His famous quote “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” tells it all. Over the past two decades or so, it has been recognized that food is medicine but very little has been done to better train and educate health care providers to advise patients and populations on how to better eat in our obesogenic environment. This would represent a first step towards the maintenance of healthier weights in individuals and populations and therefore promote better health.

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