Obesity who is at risk

If your BMI indicates you are getting close to being overweight, or if you have certain risk factors , your doctor may recommend you adopt healthy lifestyle changes to prevent you from becoming overweight and obese. Changes include healthy eating, being physically active, aiming for a healthy weight , and getting healthy amounts of sleep. Read healthy lifestyle changes for more information. There are no specific symptoms of overweight and obesity. The signs of overweight and obesity include a high body mass index BMI and an unhealthy body fat distribution that can be estimated by measuring your waist circumference.

Obesity can cause complications in many parts of your body. Another sign of overweight and obesity is having an unhealthy body fat distribution. Fatty tissue is found in different parts of your body and has many functions.

Having an increased waist circumference suggests that you have increased amounts of fat in your abdomen. An increased waist circumference is a sign of obesity and can increase your risk for obesity-related complications. Visceral fat is the fatty tissue inside of your abdomen and organs. Did you know inflammation is thought to play a role in the onset of certain obesity-related complications?

Researchers now know more about visceral fat, which is deep in the abdomen of overweight and obese patients. Visceral fat releases factors that promote inflammation. Chronic obesity-related inflammation is thought to lead to insulin resistance and diabetes, changes in the liver or non-alcoholic fatty acid liver disease, and cancers.

More research is needed to understand what triggers inflammation in some obese patients and to find new treatments. Your doctor may diagnose overweight and obesity based on your medical history, physical exams that confirm you have a high body mass index BMI and possibly a high waist circumference, and tests to rule out other medical conditions. To diagnose overweight and obesity, doctors measure BMI using calculations that depend on whether you are a child or an adult.

Your doctor will ask about your eating and physical activity habits, family history, and will see if you have other risk factors Your doctor may ask if you have any other signs or symptoms. This information can help determine if you have other conditions that may be causing you to be overweight or obese or if you have complications from being overweight or obese.

During your physical exam, your doctor will measure your weight and height to calculate your BMI. Your doctor may also measure your waist circumference to estimate the amount of unhealthy fat in your abdomen. In adults, a waist circumference over 35 inches for women who are not pregnant or 40 inches for men can help diagnose obesity and assess risk of future complications.

If you are of South Asian or Central and South American descent, your doctor may use smaller waist circumference values to diagnose your obesity. Visit Assessing Your Weight for more information. Read Living With for more information about why it is important to monitor your waist circumference to assess you r risk for complications.

Y our doctor may order some of the following tests to identify medical conditions that may be causing your overweight and obesity. Treatment for overweight and obesity depends on the cause and severity of your condition.

Possible treatments include healthy lifestyle changes, behavioral weight-loss treatment programs, medicines, and possibly surgery.

You may need treatments for any complications that you have. To help you aim for and maintain a healthy weight, your doctor may recommend that you adopt lifelong healthy lifestyle changes.

Making lifelong healthy lifestyle changes, such as heart-healthy eating and physical activity, can help you modify your energy balance to help you aim for and maintain a healthy weight.

For example:. Your doctor may recommend you enroll in individual or group behavioral weight-loss programs to treat your overweight and obesity. In these programs, a trained healthcare professional will customize a weight-loss plan for you. This plan will include a moderately-reduced calorie diet, physical activity goals, and behavioral strategies to help you make and maintain these lifestyle changes. Read Living With for more information about required follow-up for these behavioral treatment programs.

Researchers know that our brains can become patterned so that we feel pleasure or reward from eating. This can make us unconsciously crave food so our bodies feel that sense of pleasure.

It can also make it hard to change our eating patterns, lose weight, or maintain a healthy weight. Researchers are studying whether cognitive behavioral therapies can be an effective treatment for overweight and obesity by retraining the brain to not associate pleasure with food and the act of eating.

When healthy lifestyle changes are not enough, your doctor may treat your overweight and obesity with FDA-approved medicines. These medicines work in the following parts of your body. Weight loss medicines are not recommended as a single treatment for weight loss.

These medicines can help you lose weight but when combined with lifestyle changes may result in greater weight loss. Some of these medicines should not be used if you have certain conditions or are taking certain medicines. Also, these medicines have side effects.

Talk to your doctor if you are pregnant, planning to get pregnant, breast feeding, or have a family history of cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure, heart attack, or stroke. Some patients with obesity do not respond to healthy lifestyle changes and medicines. When these patients develop certain obesity-related complications, they may be eligible for the following surgeries. Talk to your doctor to learn more about the benefits and risks of each type of surgery.

Possible complications include bleeding, infection, internal rupture of sutures, or even death. Read gastric bypass surgery for more information.

First, these surgeries reduce the amount of food stored in the stomach and the amount of calories your body can take in. This can help your body restore energy balance. Second, these surgeries change the levels of certain hormones and the way the brain responds to these hormones to control hunger urges.

After surgery, some people are less interested in eating or they prefer to eat healthier foods. In some cases, genetic differences may affect how much weight loss patients experience after bariatric surgery. If you have been diagnosed with overweight and obesity, it is important that you continue your treatment. Read about tips to help you aim for a healthy weight, the benefit of finding and continuing a behavioral weight-loss program, and ways your doctor may monitor if your condition is stable, worsening, or improving and assess your risk for complications.

Changing lifestyle habits takes time and patience. Follow these tips to help you maintain the healthy lifestyle changes your doctor recommended to aim for a healthy weight. Some people find it is easier to aim and maintain a healthy weight when they have support from a weight-loss specialist or other individuals who also are trying to lose weight.

Behavioral weight-loss programs can provide this support, and they can help you set goals that are specific to your needs. Your weight-loss specialist usually reviews or modifies your goals every six months based on your progress and overall health.

When you are choosing a behavioral weight-loss program, you may want to consider whether the program should:. You should visit your health care provider periodically to monitor for possible complications , which if left untreated can be life-threatening. Your doctor may do any of the following to monitor your condition. We are committed to advancing science and translating discoveries into clinical practice to promote the prevention and treatment of heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders including overweight and obesity.

Learn about the current and future NHLBI efforts to improve health through research and scientific discovery. Learn about the following ways NHLBI continues to translate research and science into improved health for people who are overweight or obese. Learn about some of the pioneering research contributions we have made over the years that have improved clinical care. In support of our mission , we are committed to advancing overweight and obesity research in part through the following ways.

To learn more about clinical trials at the NIH Clinical Center or to talk to someone about a study that might fit your needs, call the Office of Patient Recruitment Learn more about participating in a clinical trial. View all trials from ClinicalTrials. Visit Children and Clinical Studies to hear experts, parents, and children talk about their experiences with clinical research.

After reading our overweight and obesity Health Topic, you may be interested in additional information found in the following resources. The purpose of the virtual con Overweight and Obesity.

Also known as Adiposity. Overweight and obesity are increasingly common conditions in the United States. They are caused by the increase in the size and the amount of fat cells in the body. Doctors measure body mass index BMI and waist circumference to screen and diagnose overweight and obesity.

Obesity is a serious medical condition that can cause complications such as metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, heart disease, diabetes, high blood cholesterol, cancers and sleep disorders.

Treatment depends on the cause and severity of your condition and whether you have complications. Treatments include lifestyle changes, such as heart-healthy eating and increased physical activity, and Food and Drug Administration FDA -approved weight-loss medicines. For some people, surgery may be a treatment option.

Explore this Health Topic to learn more about overweight and obesity, our role in research and clinical trials to improve health, and where to find more information.

See also. Causes - Overweight and Obesity. Energy imbalances cause the body to store fat. Your body uses certain nutrients such as carbohydrates or sugars, proteins, and fats from the foods you eat to: make energy for immediate use to power routine daily body functions and physical activity. Sugars are stored as glycogen in the liver and muscles.

Fats are stored mainly as triglyceride in fat tissue. Read more. White fat tissue can be found around the kidneys and under the skin in the buttocks, thighs, and abdomen. This fat type stores energy, makes hormone that control the way the body regulates urges to eat or stop eating, and makes inflammatory substances that can lead to complications. Brown fat tissue is located in the upper back area of human infants.

This fat type releases stored energy as heat energy when a baby is cold. It also can make inflammatory substances. Brown fat can be seen in children and adults. Beige fat tissue is seen in the neck, shoulders, back, chest and abdomen of adults and resembles brown fat tissue. This fat type, which uses carbohydrates and fats to produce heat, increases when children and adults are exposed to cold.

Read less. Medical conditions. Some genetic syndromes and endocrine disorders can cause overweight or obesity. Genetic syndromes Several genetic syndromes are associated with overweight and obesity, including the following. Endocrine disorders Because the endocrine system produces hormones that help maintain energy balances in the body, the following endocrine disorders or tumor affecting the endocrine system can cause overweight and obesity.

People with this condition have low levels of thyroid hormones. These low levels are associated with decreased metabolism and weight gain, even when food intake is reduced. People with hypothyroidism also produce less body heat, have a lower body temperature, and do not efficiently use stored fat for energy. People with this condition have high levels of glucocorticoids , such as cortisol , in the blood.

High cortisol levels make the body feel like it is under chronic stress. As a result, people have an increase in appetite and the body will store more fat.

Some tumors, such as craneopharingioma, can cause severe obesity because the tumors develop near parts of the brain that control hunger. Look for. Research for Your Health will explain how we are using current research and advancing research to understand, prevent and treat overweight and obesity.

Risk Factors will discuss family history, lifestyle, or other environmental factors that increase your risk of developing overweight and obesity. Risk Factors - Overweight and Obesity. Unhealthy lifestyle habits. Lack of physical activity Lack of physical activity due to high amounts of TV, computer, videogame or other screen usage has been associated with a high body mass index.

Unhealthy eating behaviors Some unhealthy eating behaviors can increase your risk for overweight and obesity. Eating more calories than you use. The amount of calories you need will vary based on your sex, age, and physical activity level. Find out your daily calorie needs or goals with the Body Weight Planner. Eating too much saturated and trans fats Eating foods high in added sugars Visit Heart-healthy eating for more information about healthy eating patterns.

Not enough sleep Many studies have seen a high BMI in people who do not get enough sleep. High amounts of stress Acute stress and chronic stress affect the brain and trigger the production of hormones, such as cortisol, that control our energy balances and hunger urges.

Unhealthy environments. Many environmental factors can increase your risk for overweight and obesity: social factors such as having a low socioeconomic status or an unhealthy social or unsafe environment in the neighborhood built environment factors such as easy access to unhealthy fast foods, limited access to recreational facilities or parks, and few safe or easy ways to walk in your neighborhood exposure to chemicals known as obesogens that can change hormones and increase fatty tissue in our bodies.

There was no significant relationship between overweight or obesity and hemorrhagic bleeding-caused stroke, however. Obesity and Cardiovascular Death. In a meta-analysis of 26 observational studies that included , men and women, several racial and ethnic groups, and samples from the U.

Women with BMIs of 30 or higher had a 62 percent greater risk of dying early from CAD and also had a 53 percent higher risk of dying early from any type of cardiovascular disease, compared with women who had BMIs in the normal range Men with BMIs of 30 or higher had similarly elevated risks.

Obesity, Depression, and Quality of Life The high rates of obesity and depression, and their individual links with cardiovascular disease, have prompted many investigators to explore the relationship between weight and mood.

Obesity and Reproduction Obesity can influence various aspects of reproduction, from sexual activity to conception. Obesity and Other Conditions A number of additional health outcomes have been linked to excess weight. Accessed January 25, Weight gain as a risk factor for clinical diabetes mellitus in women. Ann Intern Med. Changes in body weight and body fat distribution as risk factors for clinical diabetes in US men. Am J Epidemiol. The incidence of co-morbidities related to obesity and overweight: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BMC Public Health. Rocha VZ, Libby P. Obesity, inflammation, and atherosclerosis. Nat Rev Cardiol. Reduction in the incidence of type 2 diabetes with lifestyle intervention or metformin. N Engl J Med.

The long-term effect of lifestyle interventions to prevent diabetes in the China Da Qing Diabetes Prevention Study: a year follow-up study. Prevention of type 2 diabetes mellitus by changes in lifestyle among subjects with impaired glucose tolerance. Association of overweight with increased risk of coronary heart disease partly independent of blood pressure and cholesterol levels: a meta-analysis of 21 cohort studies including more than , persons.

Arch Intern Med. Excess body weight and incidence of stroke: meta-analysis of prospective studies with 2 million participants. McGee DL. Body mass index and mortality: a meta-analysis based on person-level data from twenty-six observational studies. Ann Epidemiol. Wing RR. Long-term effects of a lifestyle intervention on weight and cardiovascular risk factors in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus: four-year results of the Look AHEAD trial.

Arterial destiffening with weight loss in overweight and obese middle-aged and older adults. Effect of moderate diet-induced weight loss and weight regain on cardiovascular structure and function.

J Am Coll Cardiol. Food, nutrition, physical activity and the prevention of cancer. Washington, D. Adult weight change and risk of postmenopausal breast cancer. Depression and obesity: a meta-analysis of community-based studies.

Psychiatry Res. Overweight, obesity, and depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Arch Gen Psychiatry. Kim D, Kawachi I. Obesity and health-related quality of life. In: Hu FB, ed. Obesity Epidemiology. London: Oxford University Press; Physical activity, body mass index, and ovulatory disorder infertility. Obesity in pregnancy: prevalence and metabolic consequences. Semin Fetal Neonatal Med. Maternal overweight and obesity and the risk of congenital anomalies: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Weight loss results in significant improvement in pregnancy and ovulation rates in anovulatory obese women. Hum Reprod. Male obesity and alteration in sperm parameters.

Fertil Steril. Body mass index in relation to semen quality, sperm DNA integrity, and serum reproductive hormone levels among men attending an infertility clinic. A prospective study of risk factors for erectile dysfunction. Obesity reduces life expectancy by an average of 3 to 10 years, depending on how severe it is. It's estimated that obesity and being overweight contribute to at least 1 in every 13 deaths in Europe.

There's no quick fix for obesity. Weight loss programmes take time and commitment, and work best when fully completed. The healthcare professionals involved with your care should provide encouragement and advice about how to maintain the weight loss achieved. Regularly monitoring your weight, setting realistic goals, and involving your friends and family with your attempts to lose weight can also help.

Our guide to care and support explains your options and where you can get support. If it's been a long time since you did any exercise, you should check out the Couch to 5K running plan. It consists of podcasts delivered over the course of 9 weeks and has been specifically designed for absolute beginners. To begin with, you start running for short periods of time, and as the plan progresses, gradually increase the amount.

At the end of the 9 weeks, you should be able to run for 30 minutes non-stop, which for most people is around 5 kilometres 3. Page last reviewed: 16 May Next review due: 16 May How to tell if you're obese The most widely used method to check if you're a healthy weight is body mass index BMI. For most adults, a BMI of: Risks of obesity It's very important to take steps to tackle obesity because, as well as causing obvious physical changes, it can lead to a number of serious and potentially life-threatening conditions.

These include: type 2 diabetes coronary heart disease some types of cancer, such as breast cancer and bowel cancer stroke Obesity can also affect your quality of life and lead to psychological problems, such as depression and low self-esteem.