Food habits linked to obesity in developing countries: Study

A recent study shows that food consumption habits are worsening across the developing countries, including Bangladesh, raising the likelihood of a double burden of obesity and malnutrition in poorer countries, reports UNB.

Bangladesh is pegged to become a middle-income country by 2021, following substantial improvements in public health, education and poverty reduction since 1990.

But the recent paper published in The Lancet suggests that this success may be a double-edged sword, as previously unseen diseases and conditions of affluence like obesity are emerging as serious public health threats in the developing world.

The study, which analysed the eating habits of people in 187 countries in 1990 and 2010, attributes expanding waistlines to worsening food consumption habits, according to an iccddr, b web post.

The study did not provide in-depth analyses of Bangladesh, but it is known that problem of obesity is increasing in the country. And the results from this large global study will provide lessons for Bangladesh, where the risks associated with poor eating habits may already be creating a dual burden still dealing with under-nutrition.

In previous studies, for example, some 17.6 per cent of schoolchildren in Bangladesh were still found to be underweight in 2009.

And while rates of stunting in Bangladesh have gone down considerably - by 31 per cent in some rural areas - obesity is also on the rise.  Even though the rates are still low - less than 3 per cent in 2012, according to one study - the absolute numbers of obese rural Bangladesh children have more than doubled in just 13 years.

These trends could leave health systems struggling to cope with simultaneous burdens of communicable and non-communicable diseases associated from malnutrition and obesity.