Worldwide, obesity almost tripled between 1975 and 2016 and is now prevalent in both rich and poor countries. Using annual food availability data produced by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) covering half a century in 118 countries, this article explores the diets that are central to the problem of obesity, identifying groups of countries with similar consumption patterns. Applying algorithms from the fuzzy clustering literature, five distinct consumption patterns are revealed whose dietary composition broadly corresponds to diets that we label ‘Western’, ‘Traditional’, ‘Mediterranean’, ‘Tropical’ and ‘Vegetarian’. Despite differences in dietary characteristics, all five share two common themes: rising total calories and declining healthiness, both of which are linked to the substitution of plant-based foods with food derived from animals. That the evidence points to a convergence on the ‘Western’ diet, the most obesogenic and least healthy of all the diets we consider, is a cause for concern. The key message is that in a future where people are predicted to live longer – but not necessarily healthier – lives, recent efforts to address the challenge are prescient, and as the results in the article imply, need to be heeded globally.

中文翻译：

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国家食品消费模式：趋同趋势和对健康的影响

在全球范围内，肥胖症在 1975 年至 2016 年期间几乎翻了三倍，现在在富国和穷国都很普遍。本文使用联合国粮食及农业组织 (FAO) 提供的涵盖半个世纪的 118 个国家/地区的年度粮食供应数据，探讨了对肥胖问题至关重要的饮食，确定了具有相似消费模式的国家组。应用模糊聚类文献中的算法，揭示了五种不同的消费模式，其饮食构成大致对应于我们标记为“西方”、“传统”、“地中海”、“热带”和“素食”的饮食。尽管饮食特征不同，但所有五种食物都有两个共同主题：总卡路里增加和健康状况下降，这两者都与用动物性食物替代植​​物性食物有关。证据表明“西方”饮食趋于一致，这是我们考虑的所有饮食中最容易导致肥胖和最不健康的一种，这引起了人们的关注。关键信息是，在未来人们预计会活得更长——但不一定更健康——生活中，最近为应对这一挑战所做的努力是有先见之明的，正如文章中的结果所暗示的那样，需要在全球范围内引起注意。