🌍 The PREFIT Project contributes to a major study published in Nature on global obesity
Researchers from the PROFITH group provide Spanish data for an international analysis revealing the stabilization —and even reversal— of rising obesity rates in many developed countries.
The PREFIT Project, coordinated by the PROFITH research group at the Sport and Health University Research Institute (iMUDS) of the University of Granada, has contributed to an international macro-study published in the prestigious journal Nature. The work, led by researchers from Imperial College London through the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC), analyses more than four decades of obesity data worldwide, covering the period from 1980 to 2024.
The study, which involved more than 1,900 researchers and drew on data from 232 million people across 200 countries and territories, reveals that the rise in obesity has slowed, stabilized, and even reversed in many nations, although it continues to grow in developing countries.
Spain’s contribution to this global effort was channelled through the PREFIT Project, a multicentre study with the participation of researchers from 10 universities across the country: Granada, Almería and Cádiz (south); Cuenca and Madrid (centre); Castellón de la Plana (east); Zaragoza and Vitoria (north); and the two main islands, Mallorca and Gran Canaria.
Francisco B. Ortega, principal investigator of the PREFIT study, highlights the importance of this contribution: “It is important to provide Spanish data to better understand obesity trends in our country and how they compare with the rest of Europe and the world. Spain has been among the countries with the highest obesity rates in Europe in recent years, but the parameters of this new analysis show that the rise in obesity has stagnated for both sexes and across different age groups.” According to Ortega, in girls and boys stabilization has occurred at prevalence rates of 10% and 14% respectively, higher than in many other countries that have also plateaued in this age group, while in women and men the plateau is established at moderate rates of 13% and 18%, with possible early signs of decline.
Cristina Cadenas, data collection coordinator for the PREFIT project, warns that the challenge remains substantial: “Although obesity trends have improved in Spain, the total percentage of people living with overweight or obesity across different age groups is still very high. It is therefore necessary to continue investing in strategies to promote physical activity and healthy eating, in order to mitigate the multiple negative effects that excess weight has on individuals and on society.”
These findings reinforce the position of iMUDS and the PROFITH group as international references in research on physical activity, fitness and health, contributing high-impact evidence to the global understanding of one of the most pressing public health challenges of our time.
