Obesity FAQs
The answers to frequently asked questions are meant as a guide and vary from person to person.
What is obesity?
Most people think obesity means to be excessively overweight, the definition of obesity is an excess of body fat. Because it is difficult to measure an individual’s body fat, and easy to measure weight, most refer to obesity as being very overweight. While a person’s weight is a reflection of their body fat, there is not an exact correlation.
Body mass index or BMI is a more accurate number utilized by clinicians. A persons BMI is calculated by dividing their weight in kilograms by their height in meters squared. A BMI of 22-25 is considered normal, 25-30 overweight, 30-35 obese, 35-40 class II obesity and more than 40 morbid obesity or class III obesity. Individuals with a BMI of 40 are usually considered as candidates for surgery, as well as those with BMI of 35 with a life threatening complication or health risks from their obesity.
Why would you consider surgery for obesity?
Obesity is a very serious medical disease. Severe obesity can negatively affect many aspects of an individual’s life. The strain of excess body fat can damage bones, muscles and internal organs. The probability of diabetes, heart disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, infertility, gallbladder disease, venous insufficiency, and certain cancers are increased by obesity. These risks continue to increase as your weight increases. Obesity can also have psychological and social implications. Morbidly obese individuals are commonly victims of prejudice at school and at the work place.
Oftentimes when obesity becomes very severe, individuals can become homebound, as they have difficulty walking as well as breathing. Additionally, there is an increased incidence of depression in those affected by obesity.
Surgery shouldn’t be the first option to treat a weight problem. If you can lose weight without an operation, it is preferable. Unfortunately, for many individuals who have been unsuccessful with diets, nutritional counseling and exercise programs, long term weight loss is not possible without surgery.
For many individuals, their health and quality of life improves after having bariatric surgery. Several recent publications have documented these benefits. For example, a study from East Carolina University has shown that gastric bypass surgery can prevent the progression and mortality associated with Type II diabetes in morbidly obese adults. Another study from Sweden showed that gastric banding surgery improves mental health and allows individuals to be more active. At this time, bariatric surgery is the only remedy that can document long term weight loss in the majority of morbidly obese individuals. However, this does not mean that no one is successful without surgery, because some undoubtedly are. A majority of the patients lose weight only to relapse and regain their weight. Surgery does not replace the need to exercise and eat healthier food choices, but makes these goals more realistic and provides a long-term control mechanism to assist in managing this chronic problem.
What causes obesity?
Many believe that obesity is caused by a lack of willpower and can simply be treated by modifying your diet however this is not true.
Obesity is a complicated problem that has genetic roots. People inherit genes that make them more efficient savers of energy. These genes most likely evolved to help their ancestors survive stress or famine. In addition, instead of active physical jobs, many work in office settings, which tend to burn few calories. Rather than hunting and gathering for food like the old days, we can simply purchase it virtually anywhere. This combination of a less active society combined with easy access to energy dense foods has led to an obesity epidemic in America. Other factors including preservatives and infectious agents have been hypothesized as being partially responsible for the expanding girth in our society.
The next generation of obesity treatments will focus on how to treat this energy imbalance. Currently, the focus in obesity treatment is on reducing caloric intake and promoting exercise to increase energy expenditure and increase muscle mass. A person’s metabolic rate can only be increased by increasing the amount of muscle they have. The amount of muscle they have can only be increased by exercise.
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