Childhood obesity has become one of the most serious global health challenges of our time. The combined prevalence of overweight and obesity has rapidly increased worldwide during the last two decades, especially in some developing countries where obesity is reaching levels on a par with some industrialized countries, or even higher. This fast growth has occurred especially in countries in the midst of rapid social-economic transitions. Most international comparisons focus on the adult population while analyses focusing on the child population are more limited. Using the methodology developed by Phillips and Sul, this paper studies the worldwide evolution of children’s body mass index (BMI), overweight and obesity prevalence for a large sample of countries during the period 1975–2016. Our results indicate that the figures for BMI or the prevalence of obesity in different countries do not converge, while the opposite is the case for overweight prevalence in children. Furthermore, there is a non-linear relationship between obesity and income or human capital, indicating that low and middle-income countries require a strong initiative for health policies targeting obesity prevention.

It is today widely accepted that participation in social activities contributes towards successful ageing whilst, at the same time, maintaining independence in the activities of daily living (ADLs) is the sine qua non for achieving that end. This study looks at people aged 65 and over living in an urban area in Spain who retain the ability to attend Social Centres providing recreational facilities. The aim of this paper is to quantify independence and identify the risk factors involved in its deterioration.

This paper examines whether the Great Recession has altered the disparities of the US regional health care expenditures. We test the null hypothesis of convergence for the US real per capita health expenditure for the period 1980–2014. Our results indicate that the null hypothesis of convergence is clearly rejected for the total sample as well as for the pre-Great Recession period. Thus, no changes are found in this regard. However, we find that the Great Recession has modified the composition of the estimated convergence clubs, offering a much more concentrated picture in 2014 than in 2008, with most of the states included in a big club, and only 5 (Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and Georgia) exhibiting a different pattern of behavior. These two estimated clubs diverge and, consequently, the disparities in the regional health sector have increased.

Resumen En este último capítulo del monográfico nos proponemos aventurar algunas posibles líneas de investigación futuras, de avance de la disciplina o ¿hacia dónde va?