The increasing prevalence of obesity across the past decades represents one of the most pressing issues in public health, especially given the well-established role of obesity in modifiable health risk. Historically, obesity is known to disproportionately impact those of non-white ethnicities and low socioeconomic positionality. However, over the past five years, the UK has seen a combination of actions to tackle obesity, including the regulation of fatty, salty, and sugary food sales; the expansion of National Health Service (NHS)-backed weight management interventions; and the regulatory approval of several weight loss medications. In this context, Fletcher and colleagues’ recent publication in The Lancet sought to analyse demographic trends in obesity across England, finding that prevalent cases of obesity have continued to rise by 4% over the past five years and continue to be marked by stark socioeconomic inequalities.
The study assessed obesity trends from 2019 to 2025 using English electronic health records provided by the NHS covering over 54 million people. The authors estimated incidence rates by key demographic characteristics and used negative binomial regression models to quantify associations between these demographic factors and first presentations of obesity over the life course. They found that increasing obesity rates persisted over this period and were growing fastest among younger people—rates among those aged 20–29 and 30–39 years old rose by almost 16% and 20%, respectively, while rates fell among those aged 60–79. When looking at socioeconomic deprivation, obesity incidence was 35% higher among those experiencing the highest level of deprivation when compared to the lowest. Among women, this gap was even wider. Obesity incidence was 54% higher among the most deprived. These trends were found to be further compounded by ethnicity; for example, the prevalence of people living with obesity was 4% among affluent white men aged 18–19 years old, compared to 66% among Black women aged 60–69 years old experiencing socioeconomic deprivation.
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This week marks the regulatory approval of the UK’s first semaglutide tablet. While this study did not directly assess the impact of anti-obesity products and measures, this whole-population analysis of English adults highlights that rising trends in obesity are sustained and long-term despite these shifts. The persistence of historic inequalities in obesity prevalence underscores the need to more strongly consider approaches that target these demographics. This analysis coincides with findings from GlobalData’s recent Overweight and Obesity report and forecast, which found that diagnosed prevalent cases of obesity across the seven major markets (7MM: US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, and Japan) are expected to increase from 123,200,000 cases in 2025, to 135,900,000 cases by 2035.
