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Top1. Introduction
Obesity is becoming an increasingly common and growing public health problem in America and in European Countries (Christakis et al., 2007). Currently, 2/3 of the American citizens are considered overweight, and 30% is obese. According to the Centre for Disease Control report, U.S. Obesity Trends 1985-2007, in 1985, there were only 8 states in the U.S.A. with prevalence of obesity ~10%, while in 2010, prevalence of obesity increased dramatically, and at least 35.7% of the adult population was obese, affecting all 50 states and men and women (Figure 1a,b). Even more importantly, obesity affects 16.9% of U.S. children and adolescents (Ogden et al., 2010; Magarey, 2001). There was no change in prevalence of obesity from 2009 to 2010, and adults over age 60 were more likely to be obese than younger adults. The question how the growing prevalence of obesity in younger population will affect the overall trend in epidemic; indeed currently the authors are carrying out several researches and developing models to address this problem (Bruzzone, Novak, & Madeo, 2012b).
Figure 1. (a) Obesity rates in United States in 1985, (b) obesity rates in United States in 2010
Obesity is a global problem; indeed obesity epidemic (Wolf et al., 2007; Wang & Beydoun, 2007) has been increasingly spreading around the world in the past three decades, involving countries that previously never reported obesity in their population (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2005). Recently, special scientific series published in leading medical journals such as Lancet examine the global obesity pandemic (Swinburn et al., 2011; Gortmaker et al., 2011) and emphasize that obesity is a global issue and these reports call upon for government interference to turn around the epidemic with cost-effective programs and policies, supported with continuous evaluation and monitoring (Wang et al., 2011; Bruzzone, 2004; Whitmer et al., 2005).
In European Region, since 1980s, obesity prevalence has tripled in many countries and the numbers of those affected continue to rise at an alarming rate, particularly among children (Figure 2 and Figure 3).
Figure 2. Obesity as a global problem
The European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the Health at a Glance Europe 2010 report to encourage better eating habits for children.
This report emphasized that the rate of obesity has more than doubled over the past 20 years in most European countries and that just over 50 percent of Europeans are now either overweight or obese (OECD, 2010).
The current lifestyle based on a diet with excessive calories intake (fast food and carbonated beverages) and lack of an adequate physical exercise has widely contributed to the obesity increase.
The consequences affect the whole society from a social and economic point of view (i.e. Wang et al., 2003) for example health care burden, increased consumption demands and special needs to adapt to normal life in many different sectors i.e. furniture, transportation, and consumer spending, increased waste and lifestyle cost (Edwards et al., 2013; Giribone & Bruzzone, 1999). Furthermore, obesity problem is related to many other factors such as urban environments, transport systems, socio-economic conditions, and cultural factors, population aging, etc (Small et al., 2012; Bruzzone et al., 2010a; Cimino et al., 2009).