The great weight class divide: Shocking figures reveal people from poorer backgrounds are more likely to be obese - with inhabitants in the poorest parts of the North-East SIX TIMES more likely to be obese than Londoners

Britain is far from turning the tide on obesity with nearly a third of adults now afflicted by bulging waistlines, concerning analysis reveals.

A global study found the obesity crisis has worsened since the pandemic, with stark differences across England.

Analysis revealed that people living in the poorest parts of northeast England are six times more more likely to be obese than those living in central London.

Researchers led by a team at Cambridge University labeled the rise in new cases among young adults 'especially concerning.'

'Levels of obesity in England have worsened since the pandemic, with nearly one in three people now affected,' Professor Robert Fletcher, the study's co-author, said.

'We're also seeing large disparities across the country: the percentage of adults affected by obesity in northeast England is six times higher than in central London.

'Differences on this scale are rarely seen in other areas of public health.

'Beyond the implications for their own long-term health, obesity is associated with infertility, adverse pregnancy outcomes, and child obesity, which may perpetuate intergenerational cycles of health inequality.

The study - published in The Lancet's Diabetes and Endocrinology journal - is the first to analyse obesity trends over the last six years, using NHS health records covering nearly 55 million adults.

Overall, rates of obesity increased by 4 per cent in 2025, compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Young adults faced the largest increases over time, with rates of obesity rising by almost a fifth in 30 to 39-year-olds.

Rates of new obesity cases rose by 16 per cent in adults aged 20-29, while rates fell among older adults aged 60-79.

Analysis also revealed obesity rates were 35 per cent higher for those with the highest socioeconomic deprivation and lowest incomes compared with the highest earners.

And the proportion of people affected by obesity in some areas of northeast England was nearly six times higher than that seen in the most affluent parts of central London, where just over 8 per cent of people were obese.

The gap was wider still for women, where new cases of obesity were over 50 per cent higher among he most deprived.

Obesity was defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or over or based on a clinician's diagnosis.

Around a third of adults are thought to be living with obesity - despite an estimated 2.4 million people taking weight loss drugs in the UK.

Since the 1980s, obesity rates have risen dramatically, increasing more than eight-fold among boys, from 1.5 to 12.4 per cent, and more than six-fold for girls.

As a result, obesity is now more common than high blood pressure, and nearly three times as common as smoking.

At current trajectories, 40 per cent of people across many high-income countries are expected to be obese by 2050.

As well as putting untold pressure on the heart, kidneys and liver, obesity has now been linked to a least 13 different types of cancer including breast, bowel, pancreatic, oesophageal, gallbladder, womb and ovarian.

The researchers said there was no 'obvious reductions' in obesity rates following the introduction of the jabs, known collectively as GLP-1s.

However, Prof Fletcher added: 'The drugs on their own are unlikely to be the answer.

'At present, the majority are privately prescribed and the jabs are expensive, which poses a barrier for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

'We need deep-seated change to the many social and economic factors that drive obesity in the first place.'

Commenting on the findings, Naveed Sattar, professor of cardiometabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, who was also involved in the study, said: 'Obesity is primarily not about will power.

'These new, powerful data indicate that those most at risk frequently reside in the most obesogenic environments and likely have the least agency to withstand such environments.'

The team are now calling on the government to expand access to new treatments faster as well as implementing prevention strategies that are tailored to the age, sex and ethnicity-specific contexts in which obesity is most rapidly increasing.

'The UK must also fundamentally reshape food and activity environments so that healthier choices occur with minimal conscious effort,' Prof Sattar added.

'Failure to act will drive further rises in multi-morbidity and human suffering, with profound consequences for the NHS and the wider economy.'

Study co-lead Angela Wood, Professor at the University of Cambridge and Associate Director at the British Heart Foundation Data Science Centre, added: 'We have generated the most comprehensive evidence to date on how obesity risk and burden are increasingly diverging across multiple dimensions of inequality.

'These findings underscore the critical importance of secure access to whole-population health data to enable research, surveillance, and timely action to address widening health inequalities.'