In 2016, BMI was the fifth-ranked Level 3 risk factor for death globally, accounting for more than 4·5 million (2·9 million to 6·4 million) deaths and 135·4 million (88·6 million to 187·4 million) DALYs. Among Level 3 risk factors with more than 10 million attributable DALYs, high BMI had the fastest annualised rate of increase in SEV since 1990 (appendix 2 p 1399). Despite this significant increase in risk exposure, increases in attributable burden were attenuated by significant decreases in risk-deleted DALY rates, mainly due to reductions in cardiovascular disease mortality rates. We find that the burden attributable to high BMI increases with increasing development, with the lowest rates of disease attributable to high BMI found in sub-Saharan Africa, yet development is not the only predictor. We conducted a systematic search of health outcomes caused by excess bodyweight and added eight new causes for GBD 2016, which together contributed to 442 750 (191 407–796 350) additional deaths beyond the causes that were included in GBD 2015. Additionally, we included childhood overweight and childhood obesity as new risk factors, allowing us
