Figures released at the beginning of 2007 confirm the widely publicized fact that obesity is growing at epidemic proportions in the United States but they also show a staggering growth in the number of people now classed as being morbidly obese.
It is no secret that obesity in rising rapidly in many western countries and that the United States is leading the field but what is perhaps not so well known is that the number of those people classed as severely or morbidly obese is growing at twice the rate of obesity in general.
Today more than 30 percent of Americans are overweight with a body mass index (BMI) of between 25 and 29 and another 30 percent are classed as obese with a BMI in excess 30. That means that more than 60 percent of the population of the United States is now classed as being either overweight or obese. This is worrying enough in itself, but the underlying numbers show an even more worrying picture.
Between 2000 and 2005 the proportion of those people classed as being obese with a BMI of greater than 30 rose by just under 25 percent. However, the proportion of those classed as being severely or morbidly obese rose by 50 percent in the same period and the proportion of those often referred to as being 'super' obese with a BMI in excess of 50 rose by a staggering 75 percent.
At the same time there has been an explosive growth in the number of bariatric surgeries being performed in the United States. In 1998 bariatric surgery was performed on about 13,000 patients and, by 2006, this figure had risen to more than 200,000.
Today bariatric surgery is being performed in more and more hospitals and surgical centers and, in addition to tradition surgeries such as vertical or sleeve gastrectomy and the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, now encompasses a range of new techniques including such operations as laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding and even robotic gastric surgery. But, despite all of this, morbid obesity continues to rise and now appears to be virtually out of control.
With the well know and often fatal health risks of such things as diabetes and heart disease accompanying obesity one begins to wonder just what it is going to take to stem this rising tide.
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