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Get Healthy!
Eating Out Linked To Obesity Risk Worldwide
- May 13, 2026
- Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
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Eating out at restaurants and fast food joints is fueling the global obesity epidemic, a new study says.
Eating out versus preparing food at home is consistently linked to excess weight, both in wealthy and poorer nations, researchers are reporting at an ongoing meeting of the European Association for the Study of Obesity in Istanbul.
For example, people with obesity in low-income countries had 39% higher rates of eating out compared to people with a healthy weight, researchers found. Likewise, those who were overweight ate out 28% more often.
“Our findings suggest that eating away from home is consistently associated with obesity in low- and lower-middle-income countries, likely due to the ongoing nutrition transition in these countries, characterized by increasing accessibility of large portions of energy-dense foods in different food establishments,” lead researcher Mubarak Sulola said in a news release. He’s a doctoral student with Heidelberg University in Germany.
For the new study, researchers pooled data from health surveys taken in 65 countries involving more than 280,000 adults total between 2009 and 2021
Results showed that 47% of people around the world eat out at least once a week.
However, that numbers varies widely between regions. As few as 26% of people in Southeast Asia ate out at least once a week, compared to 81% of people in the Americas and 36% of those in central Europe.
People in high-income countries eat out three times more often on average than those in poorer countries, researchers found.
However, among people who eat out at least once a week, the average number of meals is similar – about 4.4 meals weekly in high-income countries versus 3.5 meals in low-income countries.
“While eating out appears to be a marker of affluence in low-income countries, it has become the norm in high-income countries,” Sulola said.
Men, younger people, singles, workers and those with higher education tended to eat out more frequently, the study found.
“In today's food environment, it's a challenge for people not to overeat and to choose foods that are nutritious and healthy," senior researcher Sebastian Vollmer, a professor of development economics with Göttingen University in Germany, said in a news release.
"As the trend to eat out continues to rise around the world, public health interventions must target the out-of-home food sector as a critical leverage point for global obesity prevention,” Vollmer said.
The meeting runs through Friday.
Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
Yale School of Medicine has more on diet and obesity.
SOURCE: European Association for the Study of Obesity, news release, May 10, 2026
