Short Intro of Obesity

Nick121 October 24, 2022

9 min read

Obesity is commonly defined as having too much body mass. A BMI of 30 or higher is the usual benchmark for obesity in adults. A BMI of 40 or higher is considered severe (formerly “morbid”) obesity. Childhood obesity is measured against growth charts.APPOINTMENTS & ACCESSCONTACT USSymptoms and Causes Diagnosis and Tests Management and Treatment Prevention Outlook / Prognosis

OVERVIEW

Obesity has direct and indirect effects on many body systems.

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.

Is obesity defined by your weight?

Healthcare providers commonly use the Body Mass Index (BMI) to define obesity in the general population. The BMI measures average body weight against average body height. As a generalization, healthcare providers associate a BMI of 30 or higher with obesity. Although BMI has its limitations, it’s an easily measurable indicator and can help alert you to obesity-related health risks.

Examples of limitations include bodybuilders and athletes, who have more muscle and may have higher BMI scores even though their fat levels are low. It’s also possible to have obesity at a “normal” weight. If your body weight is average but your body fat percentage is high, you may have the same health risks as somebody with a higher BMI.

Healthcare providers have also observed ethnic differences in how much extra weight different people can carry before it affects their health. For example, people of Asian descent are more likely to have health risks at a lower BMI, and Black people are more likely to have health risks at a higher BMI.

Another way of assessing obesity is by measuring waist circumference. If you have more body fat around your waist, you are statistically more at risk of obesity-related diseases. The risk becomes significant when your waist size is more than 35 inches for people assigned female at birth or 40 inches for people assigned male at birth.

What are the three 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:

Class I obesity: BMI 30 to <35 kg/m².Class II obesity: BMI 35 to <40 kg/m².Class III obesity: BMI 40+ kg/m².

What is “morbid” obesity?

"Morbid obesity" is an outdated term for class III obesity. In medical language, “morbidity” means associated health risks. Doctors referred to class III obesity as “morbid” because it was most likely to come with related health problems. However, they retired the term because of its negative connotations.

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.

How common is obesity?

Obesity in American adults was last surveyed in 2017-2018. The prevalence was 42.5%, up from 30.5% in 1999-2000. In that same period, the prevalence of class III obesity almost doubled from 4.7% to 9.2%. Childhood obesity in America from 2017-2018 was 19.3%.

Worldwide, obesity has nearly tripled in the last 50 years. The rise has been especially dramatic in lower-income countries where malnutrition is common. These communities now have greater access to higher-calorie foods with low nutritional value. Obesity now commonly coexists with undernutrition in these countries.

SYMPTOMS AND CAUSES

How does obesity affect my body?

Obesity affects your body in many ways. Some are simply the mechanical effects of having more body fat. For example, you can draw a clear line between extra weight on your body and extra pressure on your skeleton and joints. Other effects are more subtle, such as chemical changes in your blood that increase your risk for diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Some effects are still not well understood. For example, there is an increased risk of certain cancers with obesity. We don’t know why, but it exists. Statistically, obesity increases your risk of premature death from all causes. By the same token, studies show that you can significantly improve these risks by losing even a small amount of weight (5% to 10%).

Metabolic changes

Your metabolism is the process of converting calories into energy to fuel your body’s functions. When your body has more calories than it can use, it converts the extra calories into lipids and stores them in your adipose tissue (body fat). When you run out of tissue to store lipids in, the fat cells themselves become enlarged. Enlarged fat cells secrete hormones and other chemicals that produce an inflammatory response.

Chronic inflammation has many adverse health effects. One way that it affects your metabolism is by contributing to insulin resistance. This means your body can no longer use insulin to efficiently lower blood glucose and blood lipid levels (sugars and fats in your blood). High blood sugar and blood lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides) also contribute to high blood pressure.

Together, these combined risk factors are known as metabolic syndrome. They are grouped together because they all tend to reinforce each other. They also reinforce further weight gain and make it harder to lose weight and sustain weight loss. Metabolic syndrome is a common factor in obesity and contributes to many related diseases, including:

Type 2 diabetes. Obesity specifically raises the risk of Type 2 diabetes seven-fold in people assigned male at birth and 12-fold in people assigned female at birth. The risk increases by 20% for every additional point you gain on the BMI scale. It also diminishes with weight loss.Cardiovascular diseases. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and inflammation are all risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, including coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, heart attack and stroke. These risks increase hand-in-hand with your BMI. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide and in the U.S.Fatty liver disease. Excess fats circulating in your blood make their way to your liver, which is responsible for filtering your blood. When your liver begins storing excess fat, it can lead to chronic liver inflammation (hepatitis) and long-term liver damage (cirrhosis).Kidney disease. High blood pressure, diabetes and liver disease are among the most common contributors to chronic kidney disease.Gallstones. Higher blood cholesterol levels can cause cholesterol to accumulate in your gallbladder, leading to cholesterol gallstones and potential gallbladder diseases.

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