Economic development can have significant health costs for growing numbers of overweight and obese people, as the example of Indonesia illustrates. This is what a new book by the Asian Development Bank Institute concludes. Overweight and Obesity in Asia and the Pacific: Trends, Costs, and Policies for Better Health gathers analyses by economists, doctors, and public health experts, including Matthias Helble, ADBI’s co-chair of research at the time the book was published and now an economist at the Asian Development Bank headquarters in Manila, and Toshiaki Aizawa, a PhD student at the University of York in the United Kingdom. They write that the growing numbers of overweight and obese people are one of the most pressing public health issues, particularly in developing countries, where almost two-thirds of the world’s obese people live.

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Read the report

https://www.adb.org/publications/wealthy-unhealthy-overweight-and-obesity-asia-and-pacific-trends-costs-and-policies

About the authors

Matthias Helble was co-chair of research at the Asian Development Bank Institute at the time the book was published and now an economist at ADB headquarters in Manila.

Toshiaki Aizawa is a PhD student at the University of York in the United Kingdom.

Know more about ADBI’s work

https://bit.ly/2SmLjH9

https://bit.ly/2SkFTN7