Is obesity a disease?

In the age of promotion of slim figure, overweight and obesity are often seen as aesthetic problem or a cause of psychological problems only, whereas in fact, obesity poses a serious risk to human health and a reason of increased mortality.

At present obesity is considered one of the major public health care problems.

WHO regards obesity as sickness which leads to increase in diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, but most of all to increase in premature deaths.

Carrying extra kilograms causes degeneration of spine and lower extremities joints, which in turn reduces physical fitness and results in further weight gain.

Obese women are prone to hormonal imbalance and pregnancy complications. Gall stones and some tumors (breast tumor, uterus body tumor, prostate gland tumor) affect obese people much more frequently than slim people. It is common knowledge that obese people live shorter, and the quality of their life is usually much worse than the quality of life of people who have correct body weight.

Obesity may be considered in the context of addictions or compulsive eating, other words, lack of control over eating.

Obesity has a very negative effect on life, makes obese people avoid contacts with other people out of fear of rejection. Obese people often hate themselves, feel inferior to slim people. 'Fatso' protects him/herself from being stigmatised by the society by withdrawing from active social, or even professional life. It is very often that underneath their ostensible joviality and cheerfulness hides sadness and humiliation.

Sometimes an obese person may react aggressively and plays bossy, only to hide its weaknesses from other people.

On the other hand, it is very difficult to get rid of obesity if it is a result of a long - term process. Obesity may become a lifestyle. Eating may be a source of consolations, a way to get over sadness, anger or beat boredom.

The risk of obesity-related diseased depends not only on its advancement but also on location of fatty tissue.

The most dangerous type of obesity is male-type or apple-type, that is concentration of fatty cells in adnominal cavity. Such obesity increases the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes type II and arteriosclerosis. This type of obesity affects men. and women in post-menopause age.

A very simple measure of obesity-related health risk is waistline.

Women are prone to obesity-related diseases if their waistline is longer than 80 cm. The waistline of more than 88 cm requires immediate treatment.

Whereas with men, the obesity-related disease risk increases when the waistline is longer than 94 cm. Waistline of more than 102 cm calls form immediate treatment.

On the other hand, even a small loss of body weight of 5-10 per cent may have very good health results.

It turns out that people do not have to try to achieve a perfect body weight and figure. In the case of people with long-term obesity such desire may be impossible to fulfill and harmful for a person's motivation to loose weight.

Health benefits depend not so much on the number of kilograms lost but on the maintenance of a reduced body weight over a longer period of time.

Special attention should be paid to prevention and treatment obesity in children, because obesity in childhood and puberty is related to an increased number of adipocytes, that is fatty cells. It is very important, because later in life, loosing weight will mean only reduction in the size of adipocites, and not in their number.

The increased number of fatty cells is the cause of the so-called jo-jo effect, which leads to fast regain of weight and the reason why it is very difficult to loose weight for people who once were obese children.

                        Health benefits from even a small reduction of excess kilograms?

 -         mood improvement

-          building self-esteem and self- confidence

-          being more attractive

Even a loss of 5-10 kilograms within a year may result in decrease of mortality risk by 25%.