Many people are overweight, but if you pass the threshold into morbid obesity (about 100 pounds or more overweight), the pounds you are carrying may significantly increase the risk of one or more obesity-related health conditions or serious diseases such as damage to your organs, strain on bones, high blood pressure, arthritis or diabetes, or may end your life early. The good news is that while obesity may threaten your life, losing weight can remove these risk factors.
The reasons for obesity are multiple and complex. Regardless of the cause, according to the National Institutes of Health Consensus Report, morbid obesity is a serious and chronic disease, meaning that its symptoms build slowly over an extended period of time.
There are several medically accepted criteria for defining morbid obesity:
- more than 100 lbs. over your ideal body weight, or
- have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of over 40, or
- have a BMI of over 35 and are experiencing severe negative health effects, such as high blood pressure or diabetes, related to being severely overweight
- unable to achieve a healthy body weight for a sustained period of time, even through medically supervised dieting
