Obesity is a medical condition in which there is excessive accumulation of fat in the body. When the fat is in excess, it may lead to adverse health problem. According to world health organization (WHO), 2.8 million people are dying every year due to obesity1. In 2014, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Now a day’s prevalence obesity has significantly increased in children also. According to the latest data, around 41 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2014

When the body mass index (BMI) of the person is more than 23kg/m2 they are overweight and when BMI is more than 28, they are having obesity.

BMI is one of the parameters to assess the degree of obesity. It is dividing a person's weight by the square of the person's height.

You can calculate your BMI by using software given above

Overweight and obesity may adversely affect health. It can cause or associated with number medical disease , particularly cardiovascular diseases (hypertension,heart attack, paralysis), type 2 diabetes mellitus, liver diseases, obstructive sleep apnoea, cancer, osteoarthritis andasthma. As a result, obesity has been found to reduce life expectancy.

Obesity is a preventable medical condition. Life style modification in term of proper diet and exercise is the best way to prevent obesity and its consequence.

Main treatment of obesity consist of proper balanced diet plan and exercise. Prescribed Diet plan may help to produce weight loss over the short period of time, but maintaining this weight loss is most of the time difficult and often requires making exercise and a lower food energy diet a permanent part of a person's lifestyle.

There are certain medication available and approved by US FDA for weight reduction. These are phentermine, topiramate, lorcaserine, liraglutide etc. these medication has to be taken under supervision of doctor after discussion of its effect as well as side effects.

Various surgery are being done for weight reduction are called Bariatric surgery. Bariatric surgery is the most effective way of managening weight. It may reduce your weight by 50-60% within a short span. Although the risk of procedure has reduced dramatically now a days but, the cost and irreversibility is the main concern.

Weight

Height

BMI

BMI Categories

Underweight <18.5

Normal 18.5 to 22.9

Overweight ≥23-27.9

Obesity ≥28