Find Obesity Care Services near you

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FAQs:

What is Obesity?

Obesity is a complex, chronic disease with several causes that lead to excessive body fat and sometimes, poor health. Body fat itself is not a disease, of course. But when your body has too much extra fat, it can change the way it functions. These changes are progressive, can worsen over time, and they can lead to adverse health effects. The good news is that you can improve your health risks by losing some of your excess body fat. Even small changes in weight can have a big impact on your health. Not every weight loss method works for everyone. Most people have tried to lose weight more than once. And keeping the weight off is just as important as losing it in the first place.

What are the Signs of Obesity?

The most visible sign of obesity is excess body fat, usually measured by body mass index (BMI). A BMI of 30 or higher indicates obesity, while a BMI between 25 and 30 is considered overweight. You can calculate your BMI using healthdirect’s BMI calculator for adults. However, standard BMI calculations may not be accurate for people under 18 years, pregnant women, and people from certain ethnic backgrounds. If you’re unsure, ask your doctor or dietitian if BMI applies to you.

How is Obesity Diagnosed?

Your healthcare provider will measure your weight, height, and waist circumference at your appointment. More importantly, when you come to your healthcare provider for care, they will want to know your whole health story. They will ask you about your history of medical conditions, medications, and weight changes. They’ll also want to know about your current eating, sleeping, and exercise patterns and stress factors and whether you have tried any weight loss programs in the past. They may ask about your biological family’s health history. They will also examine your vital functions by taking your heart rate and blood pressure and listening to your heart and lungs. They may give you a blood test to check your blood glucose and cholesterol levels and screen for hormone problems. They'll use this complete profile to diagnose your obesity and any related conditions you might have.

How is Childhood Obesity Assessed?

Healthcare providers also use BMI to calculate obesity in children, but they calculate it relative to the child’s age and assigned sex. A child older than 2 years may be diagnosed with obesity if their BMI is greater than 95% of their peers in the same category. Different growth charts may present slightly different BMI averages, based on the population they are sampling.

What is the Importance of Obesity and Weight Management?

Reaching and maintaining a healthy weight is important for overall health and can help you prevent and control many diseases and conditions. If you are overweight or obese, you are at higher risk of developing serious health problems, including heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, breathing problems, and certain cancers. That is why maintaining a healthy weight is so important: It helps you lower your risk of developing these problems, helps you feel good about yourself, and gives you more energy to enjoy life.

How Does Obesity Affect Our Health?

Being overweight or obese can have a serious impact on health. Carrying extra fat leads to serious health consequences such as cardiovascular disease (mainly heart disease and stroke), type 2 diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders like osteoarthritis, and some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon). These conditions cause premature death and substantial disability. What is not widely known is that the risk of health problems starts when someone is only very slightly overweight and that the likelihood of problems increases as someone becomes more and more overweight. Many of these conditions cause long-term suffering for individuals and families. In addition, the costs of the health care system can be extremely high.

How Can Obesity Affect a Person's Development?

Childhood obesity can profoundly affect children's physical health, social, and emotional well-being, and self-esteem. It is also associated with poor academic performance and a lower quality of life experienced by the child.

What Type of Disease is Obesity?

Obesity is defined as a “chronic, relapsing, multi-factorial, neurobehavioral disease, wherein an increase in body fat promotes adipose tissue dysfunction and abnormal fat mass physical forces, resulting in adverse metabolic, biomechanical, and psychosocial health consequences.

Is Obesity Genetic?

There is a genetic element related to obesity, but this is one of many risk factors. Certain genes can impact a person’s susceptibility to obesity, but lifestyle choices still play a huge role in obesity and will help combat genetic risk factors.

Is There an Ideal Age to Begin Obesity Prevention Practices?

Yes, it’s important to start establishing healthy eating and physical activity habits in childhood. There is a connection between childhood obesity and lifelong obesity. If a person is obese at age 5, they are more likely to be obese as an adult.

Who is at Risk of Obesity?

A complex mix of factors can increase a person’s risk of obesity.

1. Genetics

Some people have genes that make it more likely for them to gain weight and body fat.

2. Environment and Community

Your environment at home, at school, and in your community can all influence how and what you eat, as well as how active you are.

You may be at a higher risk of developing obesity if you:

- live in a neighborhood with limited nutritious food options or with many high-calorie food options, like fast-food restaurants

- haven’t learned to cook balanced meals

- think you can’t afford more nutritious foods

- haven’t found a good place to play, walk, or exercise in your neighborhood

3. Psychological and other factors

Depression can sometimes lead to weight gain, as some people may turn to food for emotional comfort. Having disturbed sleeping patterns can make you eat more during the day, especially foods high in fat and carbohydrates. If you smoke, quitting smoking is beneficial to your health, but quitting may lead to weight gain too. In some people, it may lead to excessive weight gain. For that reason, it’s important to focus on diet and exercise while you’re quitting, at least after the initial withdrawal period.

4. Medications

Certain medications can also raise your risk of weight gain. These medications can include:

• corticosteroids, which may treat autoimmune disease

• antidepressants

• antipsychotics

• beta-blockers, which may treat high blood pressure

Types of Obesity

Simplifying the symptoms and providing proper information about various types of obesity can aid in obtaining the appropriate treatment and prevention measures. So here are the types of obesity.

1. Inactivity obesity:

This type of obesity occurs due to immobility. Physical inactivity not only contributes to a positive energy balance and the development of obesity but it is also linked to an increase in markers of systematic inflammation. Physical inactivity occurs when you do not move your body for an extended period of time. This can include things like sitting or lying on the couch watching TV or sitting at a desk for long periods of time. The best strategy is to stay physically active.

2. Obesity caused by food:

This is the most common type of obesity. It is usually caused by overeating and underactivity. If you consume a lot of energy, especially fat and carbohydrates, but don’t burn it off through exercise and physical activity, your body will store a lot of it as fat. The most effective method is to adjust your diet and lower your daily food intake. Avoiding sugar in your diet and aiming to exercise for at least 30 minutes every day can help.

3. Anxiety obesity:

Stress, sadness, and other issues contribute to this form of obesity. This type of fat is mainly found in those who eat a lot of sweets. What are our options for dealing with this form of obesity? Controlling stress and worry is the most effective way to overcome this form of obesity. It is preferable that you engage in some form of physical activity to relieve your stress and anxiety. Using this strategy, you can achieve remarkable results in your physique.

4. Venous obesity:

This is one of the types of obesity which is genetically inherited and occurs more frequently during pregnancy and in those who have swollen legs. Exercising, such as walking, climbing stairs, and drinking plenty of water, is part of the treatment.

5. Atherogenic obesity:

This type of obesity refers to those who are gaining weight but only have a fat tummy. It’s a type of severe obesity that can harm other organs and cause breathing difficulties. It is also linked to an increased risk of coronary heart disease, in part because of its strong link with atherogenic dyslipidemia, which is characterized by high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol. For people with this kind of obesity, it is advised to avoid alcohol consumption.

6. Gluten obesity:

This type of obesity is more common in menopausal women and men with hormone abnormalities. The easiest way to overcome this type of obesity is to prevent immobility, long periods of sitting, smoking, and alcohol consumption. Weight training is the best solution.

Causes of Obesity

On the most basic level, obesity is caused by consuming more calories than your body can use. Many factors contribute to this. Some factors are individual to you. Others are built into the structure of our society, either on a national, local, or family level. In some ways, preventing obesity requires consciously working against these multiple factors.

Factors that may increase calorie consumption include:

1. Fast and convenience foods. In communities and families where highly processed fast and convenience foods are dietary staples, it’s easy to consume a lot of calories. These foods are high in sugar and fat and low in fiber and other nutrients, which can leave you hungrier. Their ingredients promote addictive eating patterns. In some communities, these may be the only types of foods readily available, due to both cost and access. The Centers for Disease Control estimate that 40% of households in America live more than a mile from healthy food retailers.

2. Sugar is in everything. The food industry is not designed to maintain our health. It’s designed to sell products that we will become addicted to and want to buy more of. High on that list of products are sweets and sugary drinks, which have no nutritional value and a lot of added calories. But even standard foods have high levels of added sugar to make them more appealing and addictive. It’s so common that it’s changed our taste expectations.

3. Marketing and advertising. Pervasive advertising pushes processed foods, sweets, and sugary drinks, the products that we need the least but that the industry needs us to buy the most. Advertising makes these products seem like a normal and necessary part of everyday life. Advertising also plays a large role in selling alcohol, which adds a lot of empty calories.

4. Psychological factors. Boredom, loneliness, anxiety, and depression are all common in modern society, and can all lead to overeating. They may especially lead to eating certain types of foods that activate pleasure centers in our brains, foods that tend to be higher in calories. Eating to feel better is a primal human instinct. We evolved to find food, and evolution hasn’t caught up to the kind of abundance of food that Western societies now enjoy.

5. Hormones. Hormones regulate our hunger and satiety signals. Many things can disrupt these regulatory processes, including common things like stress and lack of sleep and less common things like genetic variations. Hormones can cause you to continue to crave more food even when you don’t need any more calories. They can make it hard to tell when you’ve had enough.

6. Certain medications. Medications that you take to treat other conditions may contribute to weight gain. Antidepressants, steroids, anti-seizure medications, diabetes medications, and beta-blockers are among them.

Factors that may decrease how many calories we spend include:

1. Screen culture. As work, shopping, and social life continue to move online, we increasingly spend more time in front of our phones and computers. Streaming media and binge-watching make long hours of sedentary entertainment more possible.

2. Workforce changes. With industry changes trending toward automation and computers, more people now work at desks than on their feet. They also work longer hours.

3. Fatigue. Sedentary lifestyles have a snowball effect. Studies show that the longer you sit still, the wearier and less motivated you become. Sitting makes your body stiff and contributes to aches and pains that discourage movement. It also causes general stress, which adds to fatigue.

4. Neighborhood design. Many people lack local places to be active, either due to access or safety issues. More than half of Americans don’t live within half a mile of a park. They may not live in walkable neighborhoods, and they may not see others in their communities being active in day-to-day life. When there is no public transportation option, most people can only travel by car.

5. Childcare trends. Children spend less time playing outside than they used to. They spend more time in enclosed childcare environments, which may not have adequate space or facilities for physical activity. This is partly due to cultural trends that don’t find it safe for children to play outside unattended. It’s also due to inadequate access to public spaces and inadequate access to quality childcare. Many childcare environments substitute TV for free play.

6. Disability. Adults and children with physical and learning disabilities are most at risk for obesity. Physical limitations and lack of adequate specialized education and resources can contribute.

Three Class Types of Obesity

Healthcare providers classify obesity into class types based on how severe it is. They use BMI to do it. If your BMI is between 25.0 and 29.9 kg/m², they put you in the overweight category. There are three general classes of obesity that healthcare providers use to evaluate what treatments may work best for each person. They include:

1. Class I obesity: BMI 30 to <35 kg/m².

2. Class II obesity: BMI 35 to <40 kg/m².

3. Class III obesity: BMI 40+ kg/m².

Types of Obesity Health Risks

People who are morbidly obese have the greatest risk of developing serious obesity-related medical conditions. Common conditions associated with obesity are:

- Type 2 diabetes

- Heart disease-related issues such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, angina, congestive heart failure

- Stroke

- Bone and joint problems including arthritis, back and joint pain, knee pain

- Breathing issues like asthma or sleep apnea

- Infertility or pregnancy complications, including gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, pre-eclampsia, and C-section delivery

- Gallbladder disease

- Gastrointestinal issues

- Liver disease

- Kidney disease

- Stress urinary incontinence

- Depression and eating disorders

- Certain types of cancers

- Skin fold rashes

- Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease

How to Prevent Childhood Obesity

Children and teens can become overweight or obese because of poor eating habits and lack of physical activity. Genetics and lifestyle also contribute to a child’s weight status. Recommendations for prevention of overweight and obesity in children and teens include the following:

1. Gradually work to change family eating habits and activity levels rather than focusing on a child’s weight.

2. Be a role model. Parents who eat healthy foods and participate in physical activity set an example, so a child is more likely to do the same.

3. Encourage physical activity. Children should have 60 minutes of moderate physical activity most days of the week. More than 60 minutes of activity may promote weight loss and provide weight maintenance.

4. Reduce screen time in front of phones, computers, and TV to less than one to two hours daily.

5. Encourage children and teens to eat only when hungry and to eat slowly.

6. Don’t use food as a reward or withhold food as a punishment.

7. Keep the refrigerator stocked with fat-free or low-fat milk, fresh fruit, and vegetables instead of soft drinks and snacks high in sugar and fat.

8. Serve at least five servings of fruits and vegetables daily.

9. Encourage children and teens to drink water rather than beverages with added sugar, such as soft drinks, sports drinks, and fruit juice drinks.

10. Eat meals together as a family. Family meals can create healthier eating habits.

How to Prevent Obesity in Adults

Many of the strategies that produce successful weight loss and maintenance help prevent obesity. Improving eating habits and increasing physical activity play a vital role in preventing obesity. Recommendations for adults include:

1. Keep a food diary of what you eat, where you were, and how you were feeling before and after you ate.

2. Eat five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables daily. A vegetable serving is 1 cup of raw vegetables or 1/2 cup of cooked vegetables or vegetable juice. A fruit serving is one piece of small to medium fresh fruit, 1/2 cup of canned or fresh fruit or fruit juice, or 1/4 cup of dried fruit.

3. Choose whole-grain foods, such as brown rice and whole-wheat bread. Don’t eat highly processed foods made with refined white sugar, flour, high fructose corn syrup, and saturated fat.

4. Weigh and measure food to learn the correct portion sizes. For example, a 3-ounce serving of meat is the size of a deck of cards. Don’t order supersized menu items.

5. Learn to read food nutrition labels and use them; keep the number of portions you are really eating in mind.

6. Balance the food “checkbook.” If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. Weigh yourself weekly.

7. Don’t eat foods that are high in “energy density,” or that have a lot of calories in a small amount of food. 

8. Simply reducing portion sizes and using a smaller plate can help you lose weight.

9. Aim for an average of 60 to 90 minutes or more of moderate to intense physical activity three to four days each week. 

10. Look for ways to get even 10 or 15 minutes of some type of activity during the day. Walking around the block or up and down a few flights of stairs is a good start.

How Obesity is Treated

Your complete health profile will determine your individual treatment plan. Your healthcare provider will target your most urgent health concerns first, then follow up with a longer-term weight loss plan. Sometimes there may be quick changes they can recommend for an immediate impact, like switching your medications. The overall treatment plan will be more gradual and probably involve many factors. Since everyone is different, it may take some trial and error to figure out which therapies work best for you. Studies have repeatedly shown that intense, team-based programs with frequent, personal communication between your provider and you are the most successful in helping people lose weight and keep it off.

Your treatment plan may include:

1. Dietary changes

The dietary changes you personally need to make to lose weight will be individual to you. Some people may benefit from cutting portion sizes or snacks between meals. For others, it may be more about changing what they eat than how much. Almost everyone can benefit from eating more plants. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes tend to be lower in fat and higher in fiber and micronutrients. They are more nutritious and can make you feel fuller and more satisfied after eating fewer calories.

2. Increased activity

Everyone has heard that diet and exercise are both important for weight loss and weight maintenance. But exercise doesn’t have to mean a gym membership. Just walking at a moderate pace is one of the most efficient types of exercise for weight loss. Just 30 minutes, five days a week is what healthcare providers suggest. A daily walk at lunchtime or before or after work can make a real difference.

3. Behavioral therapies

Counseling, support groups, and methods such as cognitive behavioral therapy may have a role to play in supporting your weight loss journey. These methods can help rewire your brain to support positive changes. They can also help you manage stress and address emotional and psychological factors that may be working against you. Weight and weight loss efforts affect us on many levels, so it can be helpful to have support on the human side as well as on the practical side.

4. Medication

Your healthcare provider may recommend medications to use in conjunction with other treatments. Medications aren’t the whole answer to weight loss, but they can help tackle it from another angle. For example, appetite suppressants can intercept some of the pathways to your brain that affect your hunger. For some people, this might be a small piece of the puzzle, but for others, it might be a bigger one.

Common FDA-approved drugs for treating obesity include:

1. Orlistat: Reduces absorption of fat from your gut.

2. Phentermine: Decreases your appetite. It’s approved for use for three months at a time.

3. Benzphetamine: Decreases your appetite.

4. Diethylpropion: Decreases your appetite.

5. Phendimetrazine: Decreases your appetite.

6. Bupropion-naltrexone: May reduce cravings and food intake.

7. Liraglutide: Reduces appetite and slows digestion.

8. Semaglutide: Suppresses appetite.

9. Cellulose and citric acid: Makes you feel full.

10. Lisdexamfetamine dimesylate: Helps manages symptoms of binge eating disorder.

11. Phentermine-topiramate: Makes you less hungry.

12. Combination of SGLT2 inhibitors and glucagon-like-1 receptor agonists.

5. Weight loss surgery

If you have been diagnosed with class III obesity, bariatric surgery may be an option for you. Surgery is a severe but highly effective solution to long-term, significant weight loss. It works by changing your biology instead of just your mind or your habits. All bariatric surgery procedures alter your digestive system in some way. They restrict the number of calories you can consume and absorb. They also change hormonal factors in your digestive system that affect your metabolism and hunger.

Bariatric surgery procedures include:

- Gastric sleeve (sleeve gastrectomy).

- Gastric band (LAP band).

- Gastric bypass (Roux-en-Y).

- Duodenal switch.

Sources:

Cleveland Clinic

Tenet Health

Johns Hopkins

NIH

WHO

Health Shots

Obesity Medicine

Very Well Health

Healthline

Health Direct

 

The content herein is provided for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Medical information changes constantly, and therefore the content on this website should not be assumed to be current, complete or exhaustive. Always seek the advice of your doctor before starting or changing treatment. If you think you may have a medical emergency, please call your doctor or 9-1-1 (in the United States) immediately.