This article is the first in a series on obesity that analyzes and follows the nascent public health challenge in Cuba. Obesity: A Growing Problem in Cuba

a problem only in high-income countries, overweight and obesity are now dramatically on the rise in low- and middle-income countries. In Mexico for example, one of the leading causes of premature death is obesity[2]; even in Cuba, a Third World country with First World health indicators, obesity is on the rise. Cuba’s 2004–2005 Comprehensive Childhood Study found 10.2 % of children are overweight and 8.8 % are obese.[4] Although lower than in other countries, obesity is becoming a major public health problem in Cuba. The latest data on adult overweight and obesity are not yet available since results from the most recent National Risk Factors Survey are still being analyzed. Nevertheless, a 1996 study of four Cuban provinces with a sample size of 16,099, found the global prevalence rate of obesity for adults over age 35 was 8.0%. Nationally meanwhile, the prevalence of overweight and obesity for the population over age 15 in Cuba was 61.1 % for women and 59.2 % for men. The data for obesity exclusively for the same population were as follows: 14.9 % for men and 24.6 % for women[5]. In the United States, between 1990 and 2000, the prevalence of obesity increased from 22.9 % to 30 % and the prevalence of overweight increased from 55.9 % to 64.5%[6]. Currently, one third of US children and youth are either obese or at risk of becoming so, rates that have increased dramatically over the past three decades (see chart)