Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Obesity Epidemic

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The SAGES Manual of Bariatric Surgery

Abstract

Obesity is a worldwide epidemic and represents one of the most pressing public health challenges of the modern era. Obesity carries significant health implications, including diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, osteoarthritis, and liver and kidney diseases, and ultimately a decreased life expectancy. On a societal level, obese patients incur significantly greater health costs. This chapter reviews potential determinants of obesity, including genetics, diet, and environment, and some of the preventative efforts that have been levied against this problem.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Walker AR. Obesity: a time bomb to be defused. Lancet. 1998;352(9131):912.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Harvey W. On Corpulance in relation to disease: with some remarks on diet. London: Henrey Renshaw, Strand; 1872.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Eknoyan G. A history of obesity, or how what was good became ugly and then bad. Adv Chronic Kidney Dis. 2006;13(4):421–7.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Levine JA. Poverty and obesity in the U.S. Diabetes. 2011;60(11):2667–8.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Low S, Chin MC, Deurenberg-Yap M. Review on epidemic of obesity. Ann Acad Med Singap. 2009;38(1):57–9.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Sobal J. Obesity and socioeconomic status: a framework for examining relationships between physical and social variables. Med Anthropol. 1991;13(3):231–47.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. WHO. Obesity and overweight: World Health Organization; 2016 [Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/.

  8. Ogden CL, Yanovski SZ, Carroll MD, Flegal KM. The epidemiology of obesity. Gastroenterology. 2007;132(6):2087–102.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. James WP. The epidemiology of obesity: the size of the problem. J Intern Med. 2008;263(4):336–52.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Flegal KM. Commentary: the epidemic of obesity--what's in a name? Int J Epidemiol. 2006;35(1):72–4. discussion 81–2

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Maggio CA, Pi-Sunyer FX. Obesity and type 2 diabetes. Endocrinol Metab Clin N Am. 2003;32(4):805–22. viii

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Hubert HB, Feinleib M, McNamara PM, Castelli WP. Obesity as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease: a 26-year follow-up of participants in the Framingham Heart Study. Circulation. 1983;67(5):968–77.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Wolk A, Gridley G, Svensson M, Nyren O, McLaughlin JK, Fraumeni JF, et al. A prospective study of obesity and cancer risk (Sweden). Cancer Causes Control. 2001;12(1):13–21.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Wang YC, McPherson K, Marsh T, Gortmaker SL, Brown M. Health and economic burden of the projected obesity trends in the USA and the UK. Lancet. 2011;378(9793):815–25.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Haslam DW, James WP. Obesity. Lancet. 2005;366(9492):1197–209.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Jia H, Lubetkin EI. The impact of obesity on health-related quality-of-life in the general adult US population. J Public Health (Oxf). 2005;27(2):156–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Fontaine KR, Redden DT, Wang C, Westfall AO, Allison DB. Years of life lost due to obesity. JAMA. 2003;289(2):187–93.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Aune D, Sen A, Prasad M, Norat T, Janszky I, Tonstad S, et al. BMI and all cause mortality: systematic review and non-linear dose-response meta-analysis of 230 cohort studies with 3.74 million deaths among 30.3 million participants. BMJ. 2016;353:i2156.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  19. Ebbeling CB, Pawlak DB, Ludwig DS. Childhood obesity: public-health crisis, common sense cure. Lancet. 2002;360(9331):473–82.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Finkelstein EA, Trogdon JG, Cohen JW, Dietz W. Annual medical spending attributable to obesity: payer-and service-specific estimates. Health Aff (Millwood). 2009;28(5):w822–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Finkelstein EA, Fiebelkorn IC, Wang G. National medical spending attributable to overweight and obesity: how much, and who’s paying? Health Aff (Millwood). 2003;Suppl Web Exclusives:W3-219-26.

    Google Scholar 

  22. CDC. Health, United States, 2015: with special feature on racial and ethnic health disparities 2016.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Ogden CL, Carroll MD, Lawman HG, Fryar CD, Kruszon-Moran D, Kit BK, et al. Trends in obesity prevalence among children and adolescents in the United States, 1988-1994 through 2013-2014. JAMA. 2016;315(21):2292–9.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Fryar CD, Carroll MD, Ogden CL. Prevalence of Overweight, Obesity, and Extreme Obesity Among Adults: United States, 1960–1962 Through 2011–2012. National Center for Health Statistics; Division of Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Centers of Disease Control. US Department of Health and Human Services. September 2014. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_adult_11_12/obesity_adult_11_12.htm. Public Domain.

  25. OECD. Obesity Update. OECD Directorate for employment, labour, and social affairs. 2014.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Cook S, Auinger P, Li C, Ford ES. Metabolic syndrome rates in United States adolescents, from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999-2002. J Pediatr. 2008;152(2):165–70.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Cook S, Weitzman M, Auinger P, Nguyen M, Dietz WH. Prevalence of a metabolic syndrome phenotype in adolescents: findings from the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988-1994. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2003;157(8):821–7.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Maes HH, Neale MC, Eaves LJ. Genetic and environmental factors in relative body weight and human adiposity. Behav Genet. 1997;27(4):325–51.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Farooqi IS, O'Rahilly S. Recent advances in the genetics of severe childhood obesity. Arch Dis Child. 2000;83(1):31–4.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  30. Swinburn BA, Sacks G, Hall KD, McPherson K, Finegood DT, Moodie ML, et al. The global obesity pandemic: shaped by global drivers and local environments. Lancet. 2011;378(9793):804–14.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  31. Tucker R. How healthy eating advice may have contributed to the obesity epidemic. Pharm J. 2011;286:509.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Stern L, Iqbal N, Seshadri P, Chicano KL, Daily DA, McGrory J, et al. The effects of low-carbohydrate versus conventional weight loss diets in severely obese adults: one-year follow-up of a randomized trial. Ann Intern Med. 2004;140(10):778–85.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  33. Stentz FB, Brewer A, Wan J, Garber C, Daniels B, Sands C, et al. Remission of pre-diabetes to normal glucose tolerance in obese adults with high protein versus high carbohydrate diet: randomized control trial. BMJ Open Diabetes Res Care. 2016;4(1):e000258.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  34. Siahpush M, Huang TT, Sikora A, Tibbits M, Shaikh RA, Singh GK. Prolonged financial stress predicts subsequent obesity: results from a prospective study of an Australian national sample. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2014;22(2):616–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Puhl RM, Heuer CA. Obesity stigma: important considerations for public health. Am J Public Health. 2010;100(6):1019–28.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  36. Whitaker RC, Dietz WH. Role of the prenatal environment in the development of obesity. J Pediatr. 1998;132(5):768–76.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  37. Kral JG, Biron S, Simard S, Hould FS, Lebel S, Marceau S, et al. Large maternal weight loss from obesity surgery prevents transmission of obesity to children who were followed for 2 to 18 years. Pediatrics. 2006;118(6):e1644–9.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Smith J, Cianflone K, Biron S, Hould FS, Lebel S, Marceau S, et al. Effects of maternal surgical weight loss in mothers on intergenerational transmission of obesity. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2009;94(11):4275–83.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  39. Boero N. All the news that’s fat to print: the American “obesity epidemic” and the media. Qual Sociol. 2007;30(1):41–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Roberto CA, Swinburn B, Hawkes C, Huang TT, Costa SA, Ashe M, et al. Patchy progress on obesity prevention: emerging examples, entrenched barriers, and new thinking. Lancet. 2015;385(9985):2400–9.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  41. WHO. Global action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases. 2013–2020. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  42. Hawkes C, Jewell J, Allen KA. Food policy package for healthy diets and the prevention of obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases: the NOURISHING framework. Obes Rev. 2013;14(Suppl 2):159–68.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA

    Laura Mazer & John M. Morton

Authors
  1. Laura Mazer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. John M. Morton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John M. Morton .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Foregut and Bariatric Surgeon, Division of Gastrointestinal and Minimally Invasive Surgery, The Oregon Clinic, Portland, Oregon, USA

    Kevin M. Reavis

  2. Long Island Jewish Forest Hills Hospital, Department of Surgery, Hofstra-Northwell School of Medicine, Forest Hills, New York, USA

    Allison M. Barrett

  3. Institute Chief, Digestive Disease Institute, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Matthew D. Kroh

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Mazer, L., Morton, J.M. (2018). The Obesity Epidemic. In: Reavis, K., Barrett, A., Kroh, M. (eds) The SAGES Manual of Bariatric Surgery. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71282-6_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71282-6_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71281-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71282-6

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation