In 2018, 8.4% of the total disease burden in Australia was due to overweight (including obesity), making it the second leading risk factor contributing to disease burden after tobacco use.
These estimates reflect the amount of burden that could have been avoided if all people in Australia were in the normal weight range (body mass index of 20–25).
Overweight (including obesity) contributed to the burden of 30 diseases including: 17 types of cancer, 4 cardiovascular diseases, 3 musculoskeletal conditions, type 2 diabetes, dementia, asthma and chronic kidney disease (see ABDS 2018 Risk factor estimates data table).
How much burden was attributable to overweight (including obesity)
Overweight (including obesity) was responsible for over 55% of the total disease burden due to type 2 diabetes, 51% of the burden due to hypertensive heart disease, 42% of the burden due to chronic kidney disease, 28% of the burden due to coronary heart disease burden, and over 28% of the burden from osteoarthritis.
Overweight (including obesity) was the second-leading contributor to fatal burden, with 16,400 deaths (10% of all deaths) in 2018.
Note that the following visualisation displays the top 10 linked diseases due to overweight (including obesity) by the selected measure.