Opinion - (2022) Volume 8, Issue 11
A significant public health emergency, the worldwide overfat pandemic drains the financial capacity of industrialised nations. The word "overfat" describes the existence of extra body fat that can harm health, even in people who are of normal weight and are not obese. The largest increase is attributable to a relatively recent rise in the number of people with excess abdominal fat. Excess body fat is associated with cardiometabolic dysfunction, a clinical condition that can progressively worsen, potentially leading to various common disease risk factors, chronic diseases, increased morbidity and mortality, and reduced quality of life. The most unhealthy form of this ailment is abdominal overfat, thus it is alarming that average waist circumference measurements, which are often suggestive of abdominal overfat, have grown. Despite the appearance of being overweight and obese appearing to be levelling off in some developed countries, the overfat pandemic is still on the rise.
The global population has reached body fat percentages that may be harmful to health. The umbrella term "overfat" was used to characterise this disorder, which is now recognised as a pandemic. It is widely acknowledged that the overweight and obese situations, which have largely replaced more conventional issues like malnutrition and infectious diseases, pose a persistent threat to global health. In fact, having an excessive amount of body fat has been linked to chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, hypertension, dyslipidemia, coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, Type 2 diabetes, gallstone disease, osteoarthritis, gout, pulmonary illnesses, sleep apnea, and other conditions. Over the past 40 years, there has been a significant increase in the rates of these conditions in adults and children (including adolescents), paralleling an increase in the number of people who are overweight or obese. This has had a significant impact on people of all ages and income levels in both developed and developing countries.
Although it's common to be overweight or obese, many people who are normal weight or who are not obese yet have excessive amounts of body fat that can be harmful to their health. In fact, using the body mass index (BMI) to determine whether a patient is overweight or obese may misclassify up to 50% or more of individuals who may have elevated health risks due to excess body fat. The concept of a Metabolically Obese Normal Weight (MONW) person is founded on the discovery that persons with normal BMI might develop obesity-related diseases such Type 2 diabetes or high circulating insulin levels in people with cardiovascular disease. BMIs between 23 and 25 or below have been found to be associated with many at-risk people. MONW persons, those with sarcopenic obesity, and many others who have significant abdominal fat storage are among those who are overfat but not overweight or obese. The greatest risk of cardiovascular and metabolic (cardiometabolic) disease has been demonstrated to be associated with abdominal and visceral fat accumulation, regardless of weight status. Additionally, the idea of MONW is expanded upon by the comparable term "Normal Weight Obesity" (NWO), which identifies the link between normal weight and a high body fat percentage (BFP) and cardiometabolic disorders. Body mass index (BMI) is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the product of body weight (in kilogrammes) divided by height (in metres squared). Overweight is defined as having a BMI between 25 and 29.9 and obesity as having a BMI greater than 30 kg/m2 . Although it is generally established that an excess of adiposity is at the core of the pathophysiology of obesity, clinicians and researchers typically use BMI to characterise the presence of adiposity or obesity—a practise that has been strengthened by the identification of a link between BMI and higher mortality.
Large multiethnic samples from the US general population have shown that BMI, especially in those with BMI 30 kg/m2 , has limited diagnostic performance in correctly identifying those with extra body fat, with BMI missing more than 50% of those with obesity as defined by the BFP. The biggest drawback of BMI is that it cannot distinguish between central and peripheral fat or between fat mass and lean mass. Further reducing the usefulness of BMI as a predictor of adiposity and health risk for many groups of people is the fact that the association between BMI and BFP differs significantly among various ethnic groups.
Excess BFP in adults, regardless of body weight or BMI, is linked to a variety of cardiometabolic dysregulation, as shown by a number of risk factors for subsequent disease and mortality. A greater chances ratio of developing the metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic illnesses, as well as low HDL and high LDL cholesterol, low HDL and high LDL cholesterol, elevated blood pressure, and excess BFP in particular are all linked to increased mortality. Nowadays, children are frequently the ones with the earliest dysregulation.
Perhaps the vicious cycle of excessive body fat, insulin resistance, and persistent, low-grade systemic inflammation marks the early onset of cardiometabolic dysregulation. Inflammatory substances that can disturb glucose homeostasis and have a role in the aetiology of insulin resistance can be found in excess adiposity. Insulin resistance then affects the way that glucose is disposed of and how fat is stored, aggravating obesity even more. As a result, the overfat condition may help to worsen two metabolic disorders (chronic inflammation and insulin resistance), which in turn help to increase adiposity. The onset of obesity and its initial effects feed back on themselves, increasing and entrenching the dysregulation, creating a vicious cycle. It is necessary to change the definition of obesity to include adiposity rather than body weight. The term "overfat," as we have argued, fills this need. As a result, the phrase may be more useful for public health initiatives aimed at lowering cardiometabolic risk factors, avoiding disease, enhancing quality of life, and lessening the financial burden of this widespread issue.
The estimated rate of obesity in affluent countries is significantly higher than the prevalence of overweight and obesity in adults and children globally, underscoring the severity of the obesity pandemic. Irrespective of BMI scores, overfat people have excessive body fat, a high degree of cardio metabolic dysregulation that might promote disease risk factors and chronic disease, increased morbidity and mortality, a worse quality of life, and a growing financial burden. It is essential to scientifically identify people who are overweight in order to put effective treatment and prevention plans in place as an urgent public health activity.
Citation: Chaconas A. Adults and Children Overweight in Developed Countries: Improving Public Health. Health Econ Outcome Res: Open Access. 2022, 08 (11), 04
Received: 05-Nov-2022, Manuscript No. HEOR-22-82366; Editor assigned: 07-Nov-2022, Pre QC No. HEOR-22-82366 (PQ); Reviewed: 22-Nov-2022, QC No. HEOR-22-82366 (Q); Revised: 25-Nov-2022, Manuscript No. HEOR-22-82366 (R); Published: 30-Nov-2022, DOI: 10.35248/2471-268X.22.8.11.4
Copyright: ©2022 Chaconas A. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
