According to the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, nearly 29 percent of Brazilians over the age of 20 were obese in 2020, up from about 15 percent in 2000, one of the largest increases of any country during that period. Of the 10 most populous countries, only Mexico, the United States and Russia had higher obesity rates, ranging from 31 to 37 percent, according to the data.
dr. Claudia Cozer Kalil, an endocrinologist at one of Brazil’s top hospitals in São Paulo, attributed rising obesity in part to rising wages leading to malnutrition from fast food and processed foods. As obesity has increased, she said, related health conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and sleep apnea have also increased. She said the government should do more to address the problem, including better food labeling. In Brazil, for example, nutrition labels often contain no sugar.
Still, she supported the laws. “The fact is, the population is heavier,” she said. “So we have to adapt to that.”
The Brazilian ‘gordophobia’ debate revolves partly around the unrealistic portrayal of the Brazilian body in the media inside and outside the country. The psychological impact of that image, activists said, could be illustrated by Brazilians’ efforts to inflate their lips, breasts, buttocks and muscles — and surgically suck out their fat — at a rate much faster than the most other countries.
In 2019, Brazil led the world in plastic surgery. In 2020, amid the pandemic, it had 6.1 plastic surgeries per 1,000 people, compared to 4.5 per 1,000 people in the United States, the world leader in total plastic surgeries that year, according to statistics from a global trade group. for plastic surgeons. A risky operation that transfers fat from the abdomen to the buttocks is even called the Brazilian butt lift.
