Globalisation and Rising Obesity in Low-Middle Income Countries

Abstract

While globalisation is a complicated term, evidence shows that increasing political and socio-economic connections, which is a hallmark of globalisation, dictate countries' health and economic decisions. These decisions significantly modify individuals' material circumstances and behavioural activities and lead to physical or psychological expression of disease. In 2017, the WHO reported that over 4million people died from being overweight or obese. In the last four decades, the rates of obesity, especially in children and adolescents, have quadrupled from 4%-18% globally; in 2016, over 340 million children were either overweight or obese. Non-traditional global health governance actors-whose influence in determining economic and global health decisions has risen in the last decades- have consistently furthered economic interests, which is, in part, fueling the obesity pandemic. This paper argues that the increasing economic integration from globalisation, with the aid of the current global health governance landscape, drives the current obesity pandemic by worsening the social determinants of health, perpetuating inequality, and promoting unhealthy changes in the population's economic and socio-cultural environment.