Quarter of Israelis will be overweight by 2030 - especially the economically deprived

A quarter of the Israeli population will be significantly overweight to obese by 2030 if the current trend continues, according to data from the Health Ministry’s nutrition department. About eight percent of children at the age of seven are already too fat.

The worrisome situation was discussed Monday in the Knesset Health Committee, where an urgent proposal for the agenda regarding the increase in the percentages of obesity and smoking and the widening gaps in health between Israelis of low- and high- -socioeconomic status.

According to committee chairman and Shas MK Yoni Mashriki, it is of utmost importance to reduce the gaps in health. The committee will soon hold a roundtable discussion of the issue with experts from the Ministries of Health, Labor and Social Welfare, and Education; the health funds, local government, MKs, and public-opinion leaders.

The aim is to promote specific programs to prevent obesity and smoking among children and teenagers. Mashriki called for emphasizing prevention through health education, training pediatricians and family physicians for treatment in the field, and the establishment of multidisciplinary clinics for permanent treatment of obesity, mainly in the periphery and among specific populations who need help.

As a first step, he called on the Health Ministry to recognize the phenomenon of obesity as a disease. That ministry and the Education Ministry were asked to submit to the committee the plans for reducing smoking and obesity in the Arab and ultra-Orthodox sectors; the health funds were asked to submit to the committee the programs for preventing smoking and the data they have regarding how effective they have been.

The National Program for the Quality Indicators of Community Medicine in Israel for 2022 that was led by the National Institute for Health Policy Research (NIHP) included alarming figures that about 60% of the adult population (aged 20 to 64) being obese.

Increase of smokers

The increase in the proportion of smokers in the last year to 21% of the population aged 16 to 74 (29.1% of Israeli men) is worrisome. There is a close relationship between diseases and socioeconomic status. Men from a low socioeconomic status smoke almost twice as much – compared to men from a high socioeconomic status, 35.4% versus 18.3%. These diseases will continue to deepen the gap, and the consequences of obesity are damage to the quality of life and social mobility, damage to the earning capacity as well as failure to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces.

MK Yasser Hujirat (Ra’am) added that in the Arab and Bedouin communities, no positive results have been seen despite a national plan to fight obesity. Fellow party member MK Iman Khatib Yasin stressed that poverty leads to the consumption of food that is unhealthful and not nutritious. This consumption leads to diabetes and heart disease.

Prof. Nachman Ash, chairman of the NIHP emphasized the urgency required in treating obesity and excessive smoking because of the large proportion of the population affected by these phenomena, and the expansion of the data every year.

Dr. Ella Ein Mor, who edited a study on the subject, warned that compared to the 8.5% of seven-year-olds in a low socioeconomic status who suffer from obesity, the figure is six percent of children of this age in well-off families. She also compared the low rates of childhood obesity in the Gush Dan region to that in the periphery and how the phenomenon gets worse every year. In addition, she noted that the rate of smoking in women increases with age.

Sima Wetzler, coordinator of the Healthy Cities Network, emphasized that although the ultra-Orthodox sector is considered to be in a low socio-economic situation, the figures for childhood obesity are also low there due to the lack of use of smartphones and computers.

Prof. Ronit Endevelt, director of the Health Ministry’s nutrition department at the Ministry of Health, spoke about existing courses to train mothers on proper and healthy nutrition. Obese people have a 7-fold risk of developing diabetes, a three-fold risk of developing diabetes, and a three-fold decrease in fertility among both men and women. In addition, about 55% of cancer diagnoses in men and 24% of cancer diagnoses in women are related to overweight and obesity, she said.

Endevelt concluded that direct and indirect expenses of the phenomenon cost Israel NIS 20 billion per year, which is about 1.4% of the gross national product. Her ministry allocates NIS 20 million a year for the health funds to establish clinics to treat obesity, she added.