New definition of obesity aims to treat it more like a disease

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EDMONTON (NEWS 1130) – The way doctors define and treat obesity could change soon. The word obesity has been given a new definition in the journal Obesity.

Dr. Arya Sharma, University of Alberta Professor of Medicine and Chair in Obesity Research and Management, says the problem with the old definition is it considers obesity as the presence of abnormal or excess body fat which may impair health.

“If you really want to call this a disease then you have to change the word may to actually impairing health, so the new definition would actually be, ‘the presence of abnormal or excess body fat that impairs health’ because only when it impairs health do you have a disease,” he explained.

Sharma adds the Body Mass Index (BMI), which has been the standard tool for determining obesity for decades, can’t actually tell if someone is sick.

“You take someone who has a BMI of 32, but their blood pressure is normal, they don’t have diabetes, they don’t have bone and joint pain, they don’t have liver disease so really, you’re doing disease prevention but you’re not treating a disease,” he explains.

Sharma says people who look skinny may have health problems caused by weight, while people who look big may be just fine.

He believes a routine exam and some lab work is more accurate than using the BMI, and doesn’t require a tonne of resources.

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