Several healthcare organisations and leading media primarily in India and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, are marking the day with activities to highlight how obesity  is a public health hazard.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that at least 2.8 million adults die every year on account of being overweight or obese.

In addition, 44% of diabetes cases, 23% of ischemic heart diseases ( reduced blood supply to the heart) and 7-41% of certain instances of cancer are attributable to overweight and obesity.

The WHO points out that the incidence of obesity worldwide has nearly doubled since 1980 and that 65% of the world’s population now lives in countries where more deaths are attributable to overweight and obesity than being underweight.

In 2008, more than 1.4 billion adults aged 20 and above were overweight.

Of these, more than 200 million men and nearly 300 million women were obese.

More than 40 million children under the age of five were overweight in 2011.

One of the risk factors is diabetes.

Did you know that 3,5 million South Africans (around 6% of the population) heave been diagnosed with diabetes.

It is estimated that a further 5 million have pre-diabetes, while a huge number are currently undiagnosed

There is currently and estimated 366 million people globally who have diabetes and The International Diabetes Federation has predicted that this number will increase to 552 million in the next 15 years, with the greatest increase expected to be here in Africa.