Morbid Obesity - Important Facts You Need to Know

When you are more than twice your ideal body weight or have a body mass index that exceeds 30 kg/m2 then you are considered morbidly obese. In the United States 65% of people are overweight and morbid obesity is now considered a fast-growing problem. And the sad reality is that obesity is fast affecting the younger population. Dependence on fast food, increasing soda consumption, a lack of physical activity and skyrocketing stress levels are all contributing factors to the development of obesity that with the kind of lifestyles we are leading today, it would only be a matter of time before more and more Americans will grow to be unhealthily fat.

The good news is: Morbid obesity is preventable. Healthy eating practices, regular exercises and stress reduction are all key components towards weight control. Without the discipline to choose healthier alternatives, it can be admittedly difficult to maintain a healthy weight. But the following situations that accompany morbid obesity should be enough to warn you to smarted up and take the necessary steps to curb your weight before you become morbidly obese:

1. Those who suffer from morbid obesity bring themselves closer to such health complications as stroke, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and breathing problems, breast, colorectal, kidney and gallbladder cancers.

2. They suffer from low self-esteem, impaired body image and depression.

3. Dietary, behavior modification and exercise has been shown to have limited success in the treatment of obesity.

4. Pharmacologic management of obesity such as the administration of sibutramine HCl and orlistat that are given only by a licensed healthcare provider poses a lot of undesirable side effects such as headache, palpitations, oily discharge, decreased vitamin absorption and even high blood pressure. Moreover, their long-term efficacy and other health risks haven't been fully established and even with religious administration, these medications rarely reduce the total body weight by more than 10%, according to some studies.

5. After all nonsurgical interventions will have been implemented without success, the only treatment left for morbid obesity is surgical management. Bariatric surgery procedures work either by restricting a person's ability to eat or interfering with ingested nutrient absorption or both. While approximately 60% of a person's total body weight is lost after surgery, bariatric surgical procedures do carry their own risk like any abdominal operation. Bleeding, blood clots, bowel obstruction, infection as well as long-term nutritional deficiencies are just some of the complications associated with surgical interventions to manage obesity. Without proper management, it is also still possible for a person who has undergone bariatric surgery to gain back all the weight lost from it.

It then becomes easy to understand that where obesity is concerned, prevention is better than cure. It is much easier to exercise and eat healthy rather than go through all the surgical procedures later on. Drugs and surgeries might do a significant share in reducing weight, but these produce side effects and risks that could have been avoided with wiser lifestyle choices and obesity prevention.

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