A survey published by the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI) in Peru indicated that the major nutritional problems that affect the population are overweight and obesity.
The study is called Demographic and Family Health Survey (Endes) 2018 and according to it, 37.3% of Peruvians older than 15 years suffer from overweight (excessive accumulation of fat that would lead to health problems), a figure higher by 1.2 percentage points than the previous year. This problem affected both men (37.5%) and women (31.1%) equally, as El Comercio reported.
Among other findings, it was known that according to the geographical area, the largest proportion of overweight people live in coastal regions, such as Tacna (40%), Callao (39.2%) or La Libertad (38.9%). In Metropolitan Lima, it affects 39.8% of the inhabitants.
“A similar trend can be seen in the rates of obesity (a more serious condition than overweight), which in the last four years had a rebound of 4.2 percentage points and today affects 22.7% of the population over 15 years of age”, the aforementioned media said.
According to the Ministry of Health (Minsa), both diseases increase the likelihood of suffering cardiovascular diseases, such as heart attacks and a percentage of children is also beginning to show more signs of malnutrition because of overweight.
