The Disease of Obesity

Understanding Obesity

Obesity is a Disease! Obesity is a progressive, life-threatening disease which requires proper treatment. Obesity is NOT a lack of will-power or the inability to follow a diet. Obesity impacts our metabolism, hunger, hormones, and our ability to be able to lose weight. Mechanisms of this disease are inherited and are expressed at various times in a patient’s life. Some patients are obese since childhood and others become obese later in life. The details of this gene and how it impacts our health is an area of active research and investigation. Obesity it understood to be a very complex disease with multiple components.

My patients are some of the most effective ‘dieters’ I have ever met. They have lost ten, twenty, even one hundred pounds in the past. They are knowledgeable about nutrition, various diets, and exercise. They have spent countless dollars on their weight loss efforts only to gain the weight (and more) back.

The disease of obesity makes it nearly impossible for a patient with this disease to maintain weight loss long-term. The disease essentially sets up a variety of mechanisms to prevent weight loss and encourage weight regain. The system almost always (96% of the time) wins. The changes associated with bariatric surgery enable patients with this disease to see the results of their efforts and have a lasting tool to help them maintain their weight loss and improved health.