What Is Obesity

What is Obesity?

For many people the word “obesity” conjures up the image of the 600 lb. model on novelty greeting cards.  You know the one, dressed in lingerie with the mountains of excess fat and heavy blue eye-shadow. 

These people would never describe themselves as obese; “pleasingly plump”, a little chunky, or maybe just plain overweight, but never obese.  In reality, “obese” is a medical term used to describe a condition where excess weight puts an individual at an increased risk for numerous conditions, diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, coronary disease, certain types of cancer and ultimately an earlier than necessary death. 

What most people do not realize is that it does not take being hundreds of pounds overweight to qualify as being obese.  In fact some studies estimate that as much as 31% of the total population of the United States is currently obese.  When broken down into age groups the numbers can be even more disturbing, with approximately 72% of people over 55 classifying as obese.  These figures are staggering and unfortunately they appear to be on the rise.  According to the experts the current numbers have doubled since the mid-1980’s.

There are several classifications of obesity and they are: mild, moderate and severe or morbid obesity.  In the classic definition mild obesity occurs when a person weighs 20% to 40% more than his or her ideal weight.  Moderate obesity, by this standard, occurs when a person is between 40 and 100% above the ideal and severe or morbid obesity would be a person whose weight is 100% above normal, or in other words they weigh twice as much as they should.  The term morbid refers to the fact that this condition is, in fact, deadly.

Modern technology has changed the scene even on the topic of obesity, or at least the scientific determination of whether a person is obese or not, as the new definitions revolve around BMI or Body Mass Index which compares the levels of body fat to lean in a mathematical formula (we will go into this more in a later chapter), a BMI of 30 or higher is considered obese in this day and age.  Another calculation is based on the waist-to-hip circumference ratio and just as the name would imply it is based on taking a measurement of the waist and one of the hip and again performing a mathematical calculation.

No matter which way you make the determination, obesity is a serious issue that has implications far beyond the cosmetic aspects involved.  Obesity is a leading cause of disease and death.  It is the #2 cause of preventable death in America, second only to tobacco use and with obesity on the rise and tobacco use on the decline; it will likely soon become the number one cause of preventable death.