Approximately 127 million adults in the U.S are overweight, 60 million obese, and 9 million severely obese. Between 300,000 to 587,000 obesity-related deaths occur a year.
What is Morbid Obesity?
Obesity becomes “morbid” when it reaches the point of significantly increasing the risk of one or more obesity-related health conditions or serious diseases (also known as co-morbidities) that result either in significant physical disability or even death. Morbid obesity is typically defined as being 100 pounds or more over ideal body weight or having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 or higher. According to the National Institutes of Health Consensus Report, morbid obesity is a serious disease and must be treated such.
Morbid Obesity is a Chronic Disease
Morbid obesity, also referred to as clinically severe obesity or extreme obesity, is a chronic disease that afflicts approximately 9 million adult Americans. For comparison purposes, that is over twice the size of the total population with Alzheimer’s disease. If the entire morbidly obese population lived in one state, it would be the 12th state in population. The health effects associated with morbid obesity are numerous and can be disabling. Often, individuals with morbid obesity suffer with more than one health effect, creating a situation that can shorten life span and negatively impact quality of life.
The American Obesity Association (AOA) believes that obesity is a disease. “We want obesity understood by the health care community and patients as a serious disease of epidemic proportions.”
“Obesity is a complex, multifactorial chronic disease that develops from an interaction of genotype and the environment. Our understanding of how and why obesity develops is incomplete, but involves the integration of social, behavioral, cultural, physiological, metabolic, and genetic factors.”
-National Institutes of Health (NIH)
“These figures (regarding the prevalence of obesity) point to the fact that obesity is one of the most pervasive public health problems in this country, a complex, multifactorial disease of appetite regulation and energy metabolism involving genetics, physiology, biochemistry, and the neurosciences, as well as environmental, psychological, and cultural factors. Unfortunately, the lay public and healthcare providers, as well as insurance companies, often view it simply as a problem of willful misconduct—eating too much and exercising too little. Obesity is a remarkable disease in terms of the effort required by an individual for its management and the extent of discrimination its victims suffer.”
- National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine
