By Roger Shrimpton and Claudia Roks. WB – NP Discussion Paper Series, November 2012.

(download the book here for free – 74 pages)

Conclusions of the book (page 43; from the WB web site.):

• “In the next two decades, most Low/Medium Income Countries (LMICs) due to their economic growth can expect rapidly increasing levels of adult overweight and obesity, which will produce an increased burden of insulin resistant diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

• “In just a few decades, two-thirds of the global population will reside in the urban areas of the current LMICs.

“Unless governments take urgent measures to prevent this dire chain of events by reducing their population’s exposure to energy dense processed foods or by increasing/facilitating access to “healthy diets,” and/or increasing exercise levels across the life course, the impact on future health expenditures will be crippling and unsustainable.“