Obesity is the condition of a person suffering from an enlarged mass adipeuse1, resulting in excess weight, spread across the board in various areas of the body fat.

Obesity has been recognized as a disease in 1997 by WHO. This organization defines “overweight and obesity as an abnormal or excessive accumulation of body fat that can affect health.” Its prevention is a public health problem in developed countries. It can have a significant impact on the health of the individual.

Multifactorial disease that is considered today by abuse of language as a pandemic, although it is not an infectious disease.

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The choice of indicators

Silhouettes representing healthy, overweight and obese.

Fats (and other lipids), as are the sugars (carbohydrates), are used to store energy in the body. The sugars provide a readily available energy, fat can store much energy in little space.

Fat is stored in cells called lipocytes or adipocytes. In case of large stock, there are two situations:
Overweight: adipocytes store more fat and gain weight;
obesity: when adipocytes reach saturation, they multiply.

Current evaluations of obesity involve mass (often referred to as the “weight”) and size.

Body mass index

The main indicator is used to measure body mass index (BMI). It takes into account the morphology of the individual though it may be unusually biased in the case of athletes with a very large muscle mass.

For adults, body mass index is equal to the weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of the size of the person (in meters):

example: 75kg / (1.75 m) ² = 75kg / 3.0625m ² = 24.49 (the result is in kg / m², but most of the time, it does not write unit)
A BMI between 18.5 and 25 is considered normal in an adult.
Between 25 to 30, we speak of overweight (overweight).
Beyond 30, we talk about obesity.
35 to 40, we talk about severe obesity and over 40, morbidly obese.

However it should not be confused with the BMI index of body fat, it does not measure the proportionality between height and weight but the rate of fat and muscle in the body of the individual.

It can be calculated with a specific balance impedance or by a complex calculation based on the diameter of the arms, forearms, thighs, buttocks and hips. A normal level of fat is between 17 and 22%. However, I. M.C. presents a significant variation on a global scale. The standard of I. M.C. is based primarily on a population of European type. This index is therefore not applicable to other types of population. Asians, Africans and the Pacific have body mass indices different from those of European populations.

We also know today that I. M.C. is a tool for measuring weight for height and is not sufficient to assess risk of disease among the obese.

Other markers

There are also other indicators of overweight: the waist / hip turn. It must be less than 1 in men and 0.85 in women.

It is also noteworthy that fat mass is distributed differently in men and women. It represents 10 to 15% of body weight of men and 20 to 25% by weight of the woman. It usually accumulates on the abdomen and thorax in humans, on the hips and thighs in women.

It should not be confused with obesity and metabolic syndrome. In order to be affected by this syndrome, it must submit three risk factors suivants2:
abdominal perimeter greater than 102 cm for men and 88 cm for women,
fasting blood glucose levels greater than 1.1 g / l (110 mg / dl) or treatment
a rate of triglycerides higher than 1.5 g / l (150 mg / dl) or treatment
a rate of HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol) of less than 0.4 g / l (40 mg / dl) in men and 0.5 g / l (50 mg / dl) in women (or on treatment),
blood pressure greater than 13 / 8.5 or under treatment.

It is therefore possible to suffer from metabolic syndrome without being obese, and you can be overweight without suffering from metabolic syndrome.

— References:
What are Net Carbs
The Side Effects of Obesity

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