That number says nothing.

I could imagine, for example, medications prescribed to improve health that today would not even be considered a problem. Maybe to correct various imbalances resulting from individual genetics?

Or that some medication readily available today becomes prescription over time.

Or that people become more aware / better tested of their health problems as time progresses and start taking medication earlier, before their problems become acute issues.

Anyway... why I think it is true is because of couple really sad factors:

* People seeking comfort and less able to exercise discipline. For example, even bikes which were supposed to be healthy option today mostly have little motors built into them...

* Disinformation. People seek shortcuts and there is a huge industry that exploits it that nobody really attempts to deal with. For example, dieting has been shown to not work (on its own) and yet any obese person is bombarded with information about dieting but not really any useful recipes how to deal with their problem. It does not help that most health professionals do not really know how to deal with obesity, either (for example, claiming that dietary fat is responsible for it when the opposite is true (dietary fat is necessary to help losing weight)).

* Education and popular culture pushing the idea that being fat is somehow OK (no, it is not healthy and should never be accepted as a good example). People with obesity pick up on any shred of support and tend to ignore any information that will conflict with it.

* Medical establishment continuing to only deal with symptoms, not causes of problems. People should seriously understand that sugar is far more dangerous and insidious than tobacco. Or that bad dietary habits is what is causing most of our health problems (including most types of cancer, heart disease, etc.) The issue here is that treating a disease is much, much, much more expensive that it would cost to prevent it (for example educate people, ensure healthy food available, provide guidelines, do medical checkups regularly, etc.)