Globally obesity has nearly tripled worldwide since 1977. Obesity is common, serious & preventable. Obesity is preventable & can be managed through a dedicated program.
Hence it is important to understand its definition & classification to begin with.
2. DefinitionâŚ
âObesity is defined as a chronic, relapsing, multi-
factorial, neurobehavioral disease, wherein an
increase in body fat promotes adipose tissue
dysfunction and abnormal fat mass physical forces,
resulting in adverse metabolic, biomechanical, and
psychosocial health consequences.â
Bays HE, Seger JC, McCarthy W, Long J, Schmidt SL, Daniel S, Wendt J, Horn, Westman EC :
Obesity Algorithm, presented by the Obesity Medicine Association. www.obesityalgorithm.org. 2016-17
2016-17
3. 3
WHO Classification in Adults
World Health Organization
Body Mass Index (BMI) is a simple index of weight-for-height that is commonly used to
classify underweight, overweight and obesity in adults. It is defined as the weight in
kilograms divided by the square of the height in metres (kg/m2).
4. 4
Overweight & Obesity for
Age 5-19 years
Interpretation of cut-offs
Overweight:>+1SD (equivalent
to BMI 25 kg/m2 at 19 years)
Obesity: > +2SD (equivalent to
BMI 30 kg/m2 at 19 years)
WHO
Overweight and obesity are defined as follows for children aged between 5â19 years:
5. Overweight & Obesity in
Children under 5 years of age
5
For children under 5 years of age
Overweight is weight-for-height greater
than 2 standard deviations above WHO
Child Growth Standards median
Obesity is weight-for-height greater than
3 standard deviations above WHO Child
Growth Standards median
WHO
6. Classification of normal weight, overweight & obesity
according to the body fat percentage
Bendtzen et al., 2003
