Faced with global obesity, weight-loss camps and drugs

© TIM SLOAN/AFP/Archives

A billion obese people in the world, and multiple techniques to counter this scourge of malnutrition. In China, radicalism requires, slimming camps are springing up. In France, a new “anti-obesity” drug is being released. Band-aids that can do little against fast-food giants and processed food lobbies…

There are major efforts to be made. In March 2024, a study published by The Lancet revealed that obesity has doubled in adults, and quadrupled in children in 30 years. “We thought we would reach this figure by 2030, but it happened much faster,” lamented Francesco Branca, director of the nutrition department at the WHO.

It is clear, if further proof were needed, that an ultra-processed diet, aggressive marketing and a galloping sedentary lifestyle, particularly in low-income countries (but not only), do not create athletes. And some countries have rushed into this morbid triptych even though they previously maintained a healthy diet.

A disease from the West

The authors of the study thus observe a “shift from subsistence and local food to transported commercial foodstuffs”. And this shift inevitably appears on the scale, given that it involves higher caloric intakes and a greater consumption of sugars and bad fats.

In the same household, a child can go from undernourished to overweight. This rapid transition reflects a double burden of malnutrition: too little, then too badly. In China, more than half of adults are now overweight, illustrating the impact of rising incomes, but also of the Westernization of diets. “Obesity is a disease of the Westernization of lifestyles”, underlines Olivier Ziegler, professor at the University Hospital of Nancy, with the World.

Regions such as Polynesia, the Middle East and North Africa have the highest rates of obesity, but even in France, where the figures are stabilizing, social disparities remain strong. The WHO insists: this epidemic is intrinsically linked to political and commercial choices. The lack of regulation of advertising and taxation of ultra-processed foods, cited as an example by Latin American countries, shows how unambitious public responses are.

That China wants to curb

That said, not everyone is willing to give in, and some are taking the hard way. While the solutions offered vary, some are chilling. In China, weight-loss camps are thriving, where calorie monitoring is so much a part of participants' daily lives that they are forced to exercise regularly. “They came to a weight-loss camp because they can't control their diet outside (…) and they can't exercise on their own,” Chen Hang, a trainer who works at one of the weight-loss camps, told AFP.

These centers embody a cruel paradox: while the junk food industry thrives, another one is growing to repair its damage. The usual pattern of the arsonist firefighter. But at what cost, and above all, for what results ? Far from proposing systemic solutions, the world seems to be banking on individualistic, even punitive, strategies. Moreover, it is a question of treating the problem, not its cause. 

In France, an “anti-obesity” drug has just appeared: Wegovy. By imitating the hormone responsible for satiety, it aims to counter the disorders linked to the disease. In addition to this, new food labels are being put in place and attempts are being made to improve canteen meals, but these apparently systemic decisions are far from enough. What is needed is increased regulation of agri-food lobbies and mass nutritional education.

Obesity is not just a question of waist size; it is the symptom of an unbalanced food system that needs to be fundamentally changed, while relearning to consider health as a whole.

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