Dynamics of the Double Burden of Malnutrition and the Changing Nutrition Reality

By Barry M. Popkin, C. Corvalán, L. Grummer-Strawn. The Lancet, 2019

1,293 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The double burden of malnutrition (DBM), defined as the simultaneous manifestation of both undernutrition and overweight/obesity, affects most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This paper describes the dynamics of DBM in LMICs and how it differs by socioeconomic level. The paper shows that DBM has increased in the poorest LMICs, mainly due to overweight/obesity increases. Indonesia is the largest country experiencing severe levels of the DBM, but many other Asian and sub-Saharan African countries also face this problem. We also discuss that overweight increases are mainly due to rapid changes in the food system, particularly the availability of cheap ultra-processed food and beverages in LMICs while there are major reductions in physical activity at work, transportation, home and even leisure related to introductions of activity-saving technologies. Understanding that the lowest income LMICs face severe levels of DBM and that the major direct cause is rapid increases in overweight allows identifying selected critical drivers and possible options for addressing DBM at all levels.

Subfields: Nutrition and Dietetics, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/725e130190a61007bbb11e22775e4a39402958e8

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Nutrition and Dietetics

1. Barry M. Popkin
2. P. Pingali
3. B. Caballero

In Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

1. Barry M. Popkin
2. P. Pingali
3. B. Caballero
4. Wcr Fund

Citations in the corpus

• Global, regional, and national prevalence of adult overweight and obesity, 1990–2021, with forecasts to 2050: a forecasting study for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021 (2025, neutral): “56 Childhood undernutrition triggers physiological adaptations that stimulate energy accumulation in adipose tissue later in life, leading to obesity in adulthood.”
• Individuals with obesity and COVID‐19: A global perspective on the epidemiology and biological relationships (2020, background): “income countries but also in low- and middle-income countries with high levels of undernutrition leading to the double burden of malnutrition.(4,12) Few low- and middle-income countries have a prevalence of individuals with overweight/obesity less than 20% among their adult populations.”