What Causes Obesity: A Chronic Disease
Obesity is a complex disease with multiple causes that results in an unhealthy and inappropriate accumulation of stored fat in the body. Obesity substantially increases the risk for many other diseases including high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea, heart disease, and cancer. It competes with smoking as the number one cause of preventable death in the United States.
The epidemic of obesity threatens the health of millions of Americans. Over 100 million Americans are overweight (two-thirds of the population), 60 million people are obese (nearly 33 percent), 11 million people are severely or morbidly obese, and the numbers continue to rise. Healthcare costs in the United States for obesity-related diseases are approaching $100 billion dollars annually, approximately 5.5 percent of the total annual health care cost.
Thirty percent of U.S. adolescents are overweight and 15 percent are obese. Childhood obesity has doubled in the last several decades, and we know that 75 percent of obese children will become obese adults.
What Causes Obesity?
The exact cause of obesity remains unknown, but at Synchrony Health we understand that obesity is a disease and not simply a disorder of willpower. The drive to eat is a very powerful biological drive. There appears to be a command center in the brain which controls food intake like a thermostat controls temperature. Obese patients seem to have too high a set point of this appetite control system, such that they are compelled to take in more calories than they need to maintain their ideal body weight.
There are multiple factors that play a role in the disrupton of this control system that results in the development of obesity:
Genetic or inherited factors
A strong familial component to obesity
Genes that regulate metabolism, appetite and satiety
Behavioral or psychological factors
Using food as a coping mechanism
Eating disorders such as binge eating and others
Learned eating behavior
Medical or endocrine causes
Cultural or environmental causes
Sedentary lifestyle
Technologies that reduce our daily activity (TV remote, elevator)
High-calorie food readily available and inexpensive
Social Discrimination
Unfortunately, obesity is the last socially acceptable form of discrimination. The misconception that an obese person is weak and has poor eating habits hampers their ability to obtain reasonable health insurance coverage of their disease. Lack of respect for the obese person is a serious problem. In a survey of obese individuals, 80 percent reported disrespectful treatment by their doctor. There are widespread negative attitudes that obese people are lazy, weak-willed, ugly, awkward, self-indulgent and immoral. This intense prejudice transcends age, sex, religion, race and socioeconomic status. Numerous studies have documented the stigmatization of obese persons in most areas of social functioning. Obesity represents a management challenge for physicians and a psychological and biological challenge for patients. Obese people often consider their condition to be a greater handicap than deafness, dyslexia, or blindness.