Prevalence and forecasts of adolescent overweight and obesity from 1990-2050: Global trends, with a lens to the Asia-Pacific region
Synopsis: Join us for an eye-opening webinar on the global adolescent obesity crisis! Our expert speakers will unveil groundbreaking data on overweight and obesity trends among 15-24 year-olds across 204 countries, with a special focus on the Asia-Pacific region. Discover how these trends have evolved since 1990 and what the future holds up to 2050.
This vital information will equip policymakers, healthcare professionals, and researchers with the knowledge to develop targeted interventions and prevention strategies.
Don’t miss this opportunity to gain insights that could shape the future of adolescent health worldwide.
What you will learn about
- Global obesity trends for adolescents (15-24 years) from 1990 to 2021
- Forecasts up to 2050 under a reference scenario
- Insights on which regions and population subgroups require intervention or prevention strategies
Speakers: Dr Jessica Kerr & Professor Dorothea Dumuid
Dr Jessica Kerr is mid-career research fellow in adolescent population health and obesity epidemiology with joint appointments at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and the University of Otago (New Zealand). Dr Kerr is an investigator on several longitudinal population-based cohort studies and is a senior collaborator with the Global Burden of Disease Study. Using these resources, her research focuses on obesity and non-communicable disease risk across the entire developmental window from infancy to young adulthood, with expertise in obesity burden, epidemiology, and associated disease outcomes.
Professor Dorothea Dumuid is a behavioural epidemiologist at the University of South Australia and an Honorary Research Fellow at MCRI. Her research focuses on the behavioural factors influencing non-communicable diseases, with particular emphasis on how people spend their time. By examining daily activities such as sleep, screen time, and exercise, she seeks to identify the optimal balance for promoting overall health and wellbeing. Given the constraints of just 24 hours in a day, her work develops analytical models that help determine how to balance these activities to support not only specific aspects of health, but a holistic approach to wellbeing.
Date: Thursday 13th March 2025
Time: 1:00 to 2:00 pm AEDT
Advancing Adolescent Health in the Asia Pacific: A virtual community to share knowledge and support collaboration
Despite one in two of the world’s adolescents living in the Asia-Pacific region, adolescent health is a relatively new field of endeavour in Australia as well as the region. It is a field that spans policy makers from multiple sectors, researchers from different disciplines, and practitioners working in health services, schools and communities and encompasses a multitude of health topics and concerns. Despite this, there are few opportunities to come together to share, showcase and build capacity to improve adolescent health and wellbeing in the region.
This seminar series aims to provide opportunities for researchers, policy makers, practitioners, implementers, young advocates – indeed, anyone interested in the health and wellbeing of adolescents – to enhance their understanding of adolescent health and wellbeing, with a focus on research.
This series is supported by the Centre of Research Excellence for Driving Global Investment in Adolescent Health. Led by a team at the Centre for Adolescent Health, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, it brings together leading Australian research groups including the University of Melbourne, Burnet Institute, University of New South Wales, University of Queensland, University of South Australia, and the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute.
Next seminar
The relationship between non-communicable disease risks and wellbeing in adolescence: a cross-sectional study utilising objective measures in Indonesia
Synopsis: Risk factors for non-communicable diseases (NCDs, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, and mental disorders) arise in adolescence but are mostly framed as relevant to health in adulthood; little is known about the relationship between NCD risks and mental wellbeing in young people. We examine the prevalence and co-occurrence of distinct NCD risk factors, and how they relate to current mental wellbeing amongst adolescents in Indonesia, a young and populous country where NCD burden is increasing rapidly.
Speaker: Karly Cini (PhD candidate)
Time: 1:00 to 2:00 pm AEDT
Date: 3rd of April 2025