New obesity figures highlight the income divide

The number of obese adults in England rose from 26% in 2019 to 30% in 2025, according to a new analysis of 55 million people. Nearly 1 in 3 adults are now obese. But averages hide a lot, and behind this one are two very different trends.

The sharpest rises are among the young. New obesity cases went up 16% among people in their 20s and 19% among those in their 30s—compared with a national rise of just 4%. Many of these are people of childbearing age, and the researchers warn that this could start an intergenerational cycle, since obesity in parents raises the chances of obesity in their children.

There’s also a stark gap between rich and poor. New diagnoses were 35% more common in the poorest fifth of the country than the richest—a gap that was wider among women and nearly doubled among Asian women. In parts of northeast England, nearly half of adults are obese. In the wealthiest pockets of central London, fewer than 1 in 10 are. And the areas seeing the fastest rises are the most deprived ones.

Children are following the same path. The latest National Child Measurement Program found that by the time they reach Year 6 (ages 10 and 11), children in the poorest neighborhoods are more than twice as likely to be obese (29%) as those in the wealthiest neighborhoods (14%). For severe obesity, the gap is more than fourfold and is still widening.

How did this happen?

It’s tempting to see this as a story about willpower—millions of people simply failing to eat less or move more. But the evidence points somewhere else.

Weight gain rises and falls with the environment people live in: the food on offer, how it’s sold and how easy it is to be active. And that environment isn’t the same for everyone.

Cheap, heavily processed food is now the easy option rather than the exception. It’s heavily marketed and designed to be moreish. Meanwhile, daily life has been built around cars rather than walking or cycling. These pressures hit poorer areas hardest, where there tend to be more fast-food shops, fewer parks, and less time or money to spend on eating well. The cheapest calories are often the unhealthiest ones, and the people with the least money are the most surrounded by them.

It’s easy to ask why younger people in particular can’t just show more self-control. But willpower only gets you so far against an environment stacked against you, and today’s 20- and 30-somethings are the first generation to have grown up entirely inside it.

Governments have begun to act on the environment rather than blaming individuals—though only recently. In the UK, since January, adverts for junk food have been banned online and restricted on TV before 9 p.m., along with a ban on “buy one, get one free” deals for unhealthy food. These are welcome steps. But they’re early ones, and they won’t undo an environment that’s already been built over decades.

If the surroundings explain how we got here, a new generation of weight-loss drugs may decide where we go next. And right now, that doesn’t look like it’s heading toward a fairer outcome.

Drugs such as Mounjaro and Wegovy are the first medicines that genuinely work for weight loss. In theory, they could reach the communities carrying the heaviest burden first and start to close the gap. But this isn’t happening.

Around 90% of people in the UK taking these drugs are paying for them privately, at £130 to £350 a month (more than £3,000 a year). An analysis by the Health Foundation, a UK charity, found that people in the least deprived areas are more than twice as likely to be taking one of these drugs as those in the most deprived areas, for every person living with obesity.

The NHS route is tightly rationed, reserved first for those with the most urgent medical need and the longest waits. So for now, the people most able to benefit are simply those who can afford to pay. A treatment that could shrink the gap is instead set to widen it.

This is why the headline figure can be misleading. As more people pay privately for these drugs, the “1 in 3” statistic may stay the same—or even fall—as wealthier people lose weight. But that apparent calm would be hiding something else: a country splitting in two. Improvement for those who can afford it. A deepening crisis for those who can’t.

England doesn’t have one obesity problem. It has two: a shrinking one for those who can afford to treat it, and a growing one for those who can’t.

No drug will fix that on its own. Unless the government tackles what’s actually driving obesity—cheap junk food, aggressive marketing, and neighborhoods built around cars instead of people—it will become one more health problem that depends on your bank balance, not your biology.

Who’s behind this story?

Lisa Lock

BA art history, MA material culture. Former museum editor, paramedic, and transplant coordinator. Editing for Science X since 2021.

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Andrew Zinin

Master’s in physics with research experience. Long-time science news enthusiast. Plays key role in Science X’s editorial success.

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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.