BMI - Bariatric & Minimally Invasive Surgery

You Are Not Alone

If you are overweight, you are not alone. The facts are startling and disturbing: Mother and Daughter

  • Today, more than 67% of adults are overweight or obese. 1
  • 32% of children are overweight.1
  • 4.8% of adults are morbidly obese (about 20 million).1
  • Total medical cost for obesity in 2003 was $75 billion.2
  • 325,000 obesity-related deaths occur annually.3
References:
  1. Wang, Y & Beydoun, MA. Epidemiol Rev. 2007; 29: 6-28.
  2. “Quick Facts: Economic and Health Burden of Chronic Disease,” CDC, updated 2007.
  3. Nordmann AJ et al., Arch Intern Med. 2006; 166:285-93.

Morbid obesity is a serious disease and must be treated as such, according to the National Institutes of Health Consensus Report. It is also a chronic disease, meaning that it builds slowly over an extended period of time.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an increase in 20% or more above your ideal body weight is the point at which excess weight becomes a health risk.

Obesity becomes "morbid" when it reaches the point of significantly increasing the risk of one or more obesity-related health conditions or serious diseases (also known as co-morbidities). These result in significant physical disability or even death.