Obesity is a Progressive Disease - Health Channel

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Obesity is a Progressive Disease |

CDC says a third of Americans are obese. It’s a progressive disease and it’s hampering the person from childhood all the way to adulthood. It’s an accumulation of fat usually in the mid portion of the abdomen and inside the organs.

Dr. Jorge Rabaza, Chief of Surgery with South Miami Hospital, also says obesity can be genetic and costly. “A hundred and forty-seven billion dollars of the US healthcare dollar goes to treating obesity or obesity related diseases,” he affirms.

With a digital imaging, the doctor explains what the BMI (Body Mass Index) is.

Transcript

The CDC says that a third of Americans are obese. That’s correct a third of the United States of the population is obese. What does it take to be obese what is your definition of obesity? It’s usually a progressive disease it’s hampering the person from childhood all the way to adulthood one of the things that we see with obesity its genetic we see it in families the other thing that we see with obesity it’s costly and it’s a hundred and forty seven billion dollars of the US healthcare dollar goes to treating obesity to obesity related diseases it’s a progressive disease like I said the other thing that that we see with with obesity is that it’s a accumulation of fat within the body usually in the mid portion of the abdomen and inside the organs and it’s not necessarily the fat intake usually the carbohydrate intake but it’s usually that’s what it is an accumulation of fat and what’s going on with that fat it’s affecting the health of the patient A lot of times we go by that number on the scale but there are more components to it than just that we’re talking about your BMI your body mass index so doctor what is the BMI and how do you calculate it? So the BMI is a way to measure if somebody is going to qualify for the surgery and really what it does it takes the patient’s weight their way out their weight and also their height into account and it puts it into a formula and when you get that for me to get the what’s called the body mass index and that’s an objective way that a physician can look at the patient look at their height and weight and tell whether they’re gonna qualify for the surgery. So what is it so overweight twenty five to twenty nine point nine does that mean 25 percent of you is fat No that doesn’t necessarily mean that at all what that’s referring to the body mass index so in the United States when they’ve looked at life insurance policies and and that kind of thing and metrics what they’re saying is that the person who has a BMI between 25 and 29 when you take I’m way into account that person is going to be overweight a large population of the United States is overweight.

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