{"id":17910,"date":"2013-04-22T11:17:29","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T18:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?page_id=17910"},"modified":"2017-03-30T11:13:02","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T18:13:02","slug":"obesity","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/obesity\/","title":{"rendered":"Obesity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Close-upObesity<\/strong>, the state of having excess adipose (fat) tissue, is a medical term\u00a0that is the subject of some\u00a0debate. Though obesity was officially classified\u00a0as a\u00a0disease by the American Medical Association in\u00a02013, this classification has generated much controversy, both because a\u00a0number of factors\u2014genetics among them\u2014can contribute to a person’s body type and size\u00a0and because a common diagnostic tool, the body mass index (BMI), is known\u00a0by many to be flawed.<\/p>\n

What Is Obesity?<\/h2>\n

A person who has what health care\u00a0professionals consider to be an excess amount of body fat, according to medical diagnostic scales, may be classified as “overweight.”\u00a0A person whose weight is greater than 20% of their ideal weight\u2014a measurement\u00a0that should take\u00a0age, build, height, and gender<\/a> into account\u2014may be\u00a0termed “obese.”<\/p>\n

Much attention has been drawn to obesity in recent years, after a 2004 study sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published statements indicating about 350,000 deaths each year were somehow associated with being overweight or obese. These findings seemed to imply that obesity was second only to smoking as a cause of preventable death. When the same findings were analyzed further for greater accuracy, however, the true number of deaths associated with obesity was only about 25,000. This number indicates that being overweight or obese may not be necessarily be the grave health concern it is often suggested to be.<\/p>\n

\n\t

Find a Therapist<\/a><\/h2>\n\t
\n\n\t\t\t\n\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\tAdvanced Search<\/a>\n\t<\/form>\n<\/div>Different doctors and medical associations may use various scales to determine\u00a0obesity, but the BMI scale is the most common. This scale\u00a0provides an approximation of body mass based upon height and weight, and people who have a\u00a0BMI higher than 30 are considered obese. However, many experts have challenged the BMI, in part because it fails to take into account a person’s waist size, unique body type, and musculature, all of which may be better indicators of health than a numeric scale that does not allow for much individual deviation.<\/p>\n

Risk Factors for\u00a0Obesity<\/h2>\n

A diet with too many calories or a sedentary lifestyle can lead to obesity. Other factors that can contribute to the development of obesity include:<\/p>\n