Obesity in the light of socio-economic inequalities

Obesity, being one of the most crucial health problems, affects an increasing part of the world population as it has severe health, social, psychological and economic consequences. Its main cause lies in today's obesogenic environment characterised by a passive lifestyle, easy access to energy- dense foods and their aggressive marketing strategies. Because of significant changes in both production and consumption, it is not possible to blame obesity merely on individual lifestyle choices. An important feature of today's obesity epidemic is its uneven distribution. Obesity prevalence is besides other things determined by education, income, gender, family status and age. Analysis of available data showed that also in the Czech Republic the occurrence of obesity has been increasing and the number of overweight and obese people is higher than the number of people with normal weight. The assumption that there be higher prevalence of excess weight among men was confirmed, however, the expected higher prevalence of obesity among women was disproved; both genders suffer from obesity equally, yet the tendency towards obesity increases more significantly among men. The hypothesis about negative dependence of education, income and BMI was confirmed only partially in the Czech Republic: contrary to expectations, groups..