What Is Obesity?
Obesity today is recognized as a health problem of epidemic proportions. Obesity refers to a spectrum of problems of excess weight ranging from mild overweight to the morbidly obese.
Patients with morbid obesity usually do not respond to medical means of weight loss. Efforts to treat morbid obesity through controlled diets, behavior modification and exercise programs are only temporarily successful. Obesity surgery is the only method by which long-term and permanent weight loss can be achieved in these patients. Incidence of child hood obesity is on the rise due to changing lifestyles. These patients are more likely to develop obesity related complications at an earlier age. If not addressed today this problem is likely to compound imposing heavily on medical resources.

OBESITY is an excess of total body fat, which results from caloric intake that exceeds energy usage. A measurement used to asses health risks of obesity is
Body Mass Index (BMI).
The American Obesity Association reports that obese individuals have a 50-100% increased risk of death as compared to normal weight individuals, with 300,000 to 587,000 deaths each year. This substantial increase in health risks has made obesity the SECOND leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States.

Causes of Obesity

Obesity could be a combination of the following:

1. The genes you inherited from your parents.
2. How well your body turns food into energy.
3. Your eating and exercising habits.
4. Psychological factors.
5. Your surroundings.

Complications of OBESITY

If you are obese, severely obese or morbidly obese, you may have

1. Shorter life expectancy (50% to 100% increased risk of dying prematurely).
2. Diabetes (Type 2)
3. Joint problems  (arthritis).
4. High blood pressure.
5. Heart disease.
6. Gall bladder problems.
7. Certain types of cancer (breast, uterus, colon, kidney and gall bladder).
8. Digestive disorders (reflux)
9. Breathing difficulties.
10. Urinary incontinence and problems with fertility.
11. Psychological problems such as depression, negative self-image, social isolation etc.

Difficulties with day-to-day living
1. Normal tasks become harder when you are obese, as movement is more difficult.
2. You tend to tire more quickly and you find yourself short of breath.
3. Public transport seats or car may be too small for you.
4. You may find it difficult to maintain personal hygiene.

Treatment Options

Non surgical treatment

Dieting, exercise and medication have long been regarded as the conventional methods to achieve weight loss. Sometime these efforts are successful in the short term. However for people who are morbidly obese, the results rarely last. For many this can translate into what’s called the’ yo-yo syndrome,” where patients continually gain and lose weight with serious psychological and health consequences. Recent research reveals that conventional methods of weigh loss generally fail to produce permanent weight loss.

Surgical options

Following are the few procedures which have been practiced for the treatment of obesity.

1. Stomach Banding
2. Sleeve Gastrectomy
3. Bilio-Pancreatic Diversion (BPD)
4. Gastric Bypass Procedure
5. Intragastric Balloon (BIB)