Health Centers > Obesity and Weight Management Health Center

Defining Overweight and Obesity

Defining Overweight and Obesity

Nov 04, 2003

The definition of obesity varies depending on what one reads, but in general, it is a chronic condition defined by an excess amount body fat. A certain amount of body fat is necessary for storing energy, heat insulation, shock absorption, and other functions.

Overweight and obesity are both labels for ranges of weight that are greater than what is generally considered healthy for a given height. The terms also identify ranges of weight that have been shown to increase the likelihood of certain diseases and other health problems.

    Prevalence of obesity

    Ethnic and Gender Differences in Pediatric Obesity Treatment of Obesity Childhood obesity
    How much of obesity is genetic

    How much of obesity is genetic?

    One of the first problems faced in attempting to define a genetic basis for obesity is deciding what kind of effect (phenotype) we seek to examine ...

      Pediatric Obesity Risk Factors

      Pediatric Obesity Risk Factors

      It has long been recognized that obesity "runs in families" ...

      Binge Eating in Young Children

      Binge Eating in Young Children

      Fewer studies of binge eating have been conducted with ...

      Bulimia Nervosa

      Bulimia Nervosa

      As with Anorexia Nervosa, the etiology of Bulimia Nervosa is ...

      Anorexia Nervosa

      Anorexia Nervosa

      Among women, the lifetime prevalence of the full syndrome of AN is ...

      Definition and Incidence of Obesity

      Definition and Incidence of Obesity

      Obesity among children and adolescents is an increasing problem in the US ...

      Obesity Definitions

      Obesity Definitions

      A number of systems have been used to define and classify obesity ...

      The Biology of Obesity

      The Biology of Obesity

      The obese lack willpower; they overeat and underexercise ...

      Prevention of Childhood obesity

      Prevention of Childhood obesity

      The number of overweight or obese infants and young children (aged 0 to 5 years) increased from 32 million globally in 1990 to 42 million in 2013.

      Overweight is more prevalent in girls than boys and in older preschoolers (ages 4-5) than younger (ages 2-3).

      Obesity increases even more as children get older. For ages 6 to 11, at least one child in five is overweight. Over the last two decades, this number has increased by more than 50 percent and the number of obese children has nearly doubled...

        Obesity and ...

        Dieting

        Weight Loss

        Daily Obesity & Weight Loss News

        Earlier intervention leads to better weight recovery in children with multiple risk factors for weight faltering

        Earlier intervention leads to better weight recovery in children with multiple risk…

        Dec 11, 2015

        Young children who are underweight experienced greater weight recovery the earlier an intervention was started, and the recovery was more significant in children with multiple household risk factors, according to a study published this week in The Journal of Pediatrics.

        …


          Heavy hitters: Obesity rate soars among professional baseball players

          Heavy hitters: Obesity rate soars among professional baseball players

          Oct 05, 2016

          Major League Baseball players have become overwhelmingly overweight and obese during the last quarter century, say health researchers.

          David E. Conroy, Penn State professor of kinesiology, and colleagues looked at 145 years of data on professional baseball players’ body mass. The…