Obesity has replaced malnutrition as the main food-related problem.

Judge as of 2018-10-09 using global health data (WHO, FAO, GBD, NCD-RisC). True: by 2018, worldwide, the number of people with overweight/obesity exceeded the number with undernutrition (undernourished or underweight), and obesity-related harm (e.g. deaths or disease burden) exceeded that of undernutrition, so obesity had replaced malnutrition as the main food-related problem. Mostly true: obesity/overweight clearly exceeded undernutrition on the main global measures, with a minor exception (e.g. one burden measure or child-specific measure still close). Mixed: obesity exceeds undernutrition on some major global measures (e.g. prevalence) but not on others (e.g. deaths or child mortality), or it holds in most regions but undernutrition remains the main problem in large regions such as South Asia or sub-Saharan Africa. Mostly false: the claim takes a real trend (rising obesity, falling undernutrition, or obesity outnumbering undernutrition in rich countries) and states it as a global replacement the data do not show. False: undernutrition remained the larger problem on the main global measures.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Global hunger continues to rise World Health Organization (WHO), citing The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018 (joint FAO/IFAD/UNICEF/WFP/WHO report) · 11 September 2018

   “Number of hungry people in the world in 2017: 821 million or 1 in every 9 people”

2. E2 Global hunger continues to rise World Health Organization (WHO), citing The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018 (joint FAO/IFAD/UNICEF/WFP/WHO report) · 11 September 2018

   “Adults who are obese: 672 million (13% or 1 in 8 adults).”

3. E3 Global hunger continues to rise World Health Organization (WHO), citing The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018 (joint FAO/IFAD/UNICEF/WFP/WHO report) · 11 September 2018

   “Hunger has been on the rise over the past three years, returning to levels from a decade ago.”

The UN/WHO 2018 report gives 821 million hungry (undernourished) people in 2017 [E1] and 672 million obese adults [E2]. By that count, undernourishment was higher than adult obesity, and hunger was rising rather than being replaced [E3]. But the criteria compare overweight and obesity combined against undernutrition, and also compare harm (deaths or disease burden). The evidence gives neither a global overweight figure nor any burden data, so it does not settle the claim under the criteria.