Obesity Treatment

Obesity Disorder and Treatment Options

What is Obesity?

Obesity is a disease that affects nearly one-third of the adult American population (approximately 60 million). The number of overweight and obese Americans has continued to increase since 1960, a trend that is not slowing down. Today, 64.5 percent of adult Americans (about 127 million) are categorized as being overweight or obese. Each year, obesity causes at least 300,000 excess deaths in the U.S., and healthcare costs of American adults with obesity amount to approximately $100 billion.

The "official" definition of obesity is the state of having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or higher. BMI is a measurement of a person’s body fat and weight in relation to their height.

Obesity is the second leading cause of unnecessary deaths.

• Despite its toll taken in death and disability, obesity does not receive the attention it deserves from government, the health care profession or the insurance industry.
• Research is severely limited by a shortage of funds.
• Inadequate insurance coverage limits access to treatment.

Discrimination and mistreatment of persons with obesity is widespread and often considered socially acceptable.

Is Obesity a Disorder or Disease?

The American Obesity Association (AOA) considers obesity as a disease. However, the term "obesity disorder" is sometimes used because obesity can be caused by eating disorders such as binge eating disorder, food addiction or compulsive overeating disorder. Obesity is serious, as serious as any other disease of epidemic portions.

Obesity Treatment

A statistic frequently used about obesity treatment is that 95 percent of people who lose weight gain it all back. That statistic, based on a small study from 1959, is no longer valid. Much has changed in the way of obesity treatment since then. Thousands of people have succeeded in losing weight and keeping it off -- an encouraging fact for many that are discouraged by outdated information. There are several different types of effective obesity treatment options to manage weight including: dietary therapy, physical activity, behavior therapy, drug therapy, combined therapy and surgery.

Weight loss of about 10 percent of body weight is proven to benefit health by reducing many obesity-related risk factors. Recommendations for obesity treatment are now focusing on 10 percent weight loss to help patients with long-term maintenance of weight loss. Health professionals including physicians, nutritionists, exercise physiologists, psychologists and bar iatric surgeons help persons with overweight and obesity to determine the most appropriate obesity treatment. This being said, surgery should be the last resort.

As stated earlier, obesity is a disease and should be treated as such. Obesity is usually the direct result of food addiction, compulsive eating or compulsive overeating which have been effectively treated for years by various types of eating disorder treatment programs.

Due to the medical problems that accompany obesity and the difficulties managing the cravings and mental health issues, residential eating disorder programs are usually recommended after the person has tried managing their obesity through dieting, outpatient counseling, exercise and other regimens. An obesity treatment program in an eating disorder center understands that recovery from obesity is more than willpower and that there are physical, psychological and even spiritual components to recovery. It has been well documented that food addiction and binge eating are compulsive disorders that can be treated and treated effectively in an eating disorder treatment center.