Obesity

INTRODUCTIONDuring last year about a quarter of the adult population of the United Kingdom tried to lose weight, demonstrating that our society is becoming increasingly aware of the problems of obesity. This may partly be cultural and attributable to Twiggy and the miniskirt but may also reflect the relatively recent medical appreciation that not only is obesity the commonest nutritional disorder in the United Kingdom but also a major health hazard. An American male 20% in excess of ideal weight carries an increased mortality of 30% or, in other words it is as dangerous to be 10 lbs. overweight as it is to smoke 25 cigarettes a day.DEFINITION & INCIDENCEObesity is an excessive accumulation of body fat — but unfortunately it is difficult to make easy and accurate measurements of body fat. The practised fingers are probably as accurate as calipers in measuring skin fold thickness and although weighing by total body immersion may be accurate the facilities to undertake this are not readily available at Chemists or Airports. It seems likely in the meantime that obesity will be related to Ideal Weight which is a Life Insurance Company concept whereby weight is related to optimum life expectancy.This has obvious limitations; one has only to watch the caponised caperings of modern shot-putters or even the front-row of Scotland’s present scrum to appreciate that not everybody who is overweight is obese; likewise some flabby women may carry considerable excesses of fat but remain within a few pounds of their ideal. In spite of these limitations it is usually accepted that patients who are more than 10% in excess of their ideal weight are “OVERWEIGHT” and those more than 20% in excess are “OBESE”.Using these criteria it has been roughly estimated that 1 in 5 of the adult population of the United Kingdom is obese