The Obesity Pandemic and Addiction

Lecture Summary
This podcasts reviews obesity epidemiology and comorbidities. It then goes on to discuss obesity under the paradigm of addiction.

Key Points
- Obesity is the great pandemic of our time, it is on the rise, and it is disproportionately effecting children.
- Most all of our common and serious health problems are linked in some way to obesity
- The behavior of the obese, sick patients only makes sense to me when viewed through the lens of addiction.
- Healthcare providers, policymakers, and the greater society need to take aggressive action against obesity.
- Loosing weight presents an opportunity to potentially cure serious health issues. We have very few cures in chronic medicine today! This is such a golden opportunity. Providers should never omit discussions regarding obesity, as it is so often the root cause of disease.

References

Adult Obesity Facts. CDC. Available at https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

Obesity and Overweight. WHO. Available at https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-andoverweight#:~:text=Worldwide%20obesity%20has%20nearly%20tripled,years%20and%20older%2C%20were%20overweight.&text=39%25%20of%20adults%20aged%2018,kills%20more%20people%20than%20underweight.

Numerous papers on Pubmed debate the idea of overeating being an addiction. Just type in “food and addiction” on pubmed.com. 

Apovian AM. Obesity: definitions, comorbidities, causes, and burden. Am J Managed Care. 2016.

 So many papers exist to support the statements in this blog it was hard to pick just a few.