The morbidity and mortality produced by obesity in the United States and other developed societies has reached epidemic proportions. Although the problem starts in childhood and adolescence, the medical impact takes hold in adult life. Clinical studies have shown the effect of obesity on cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer degenerative joint diseases among others, and some autopsy studies have confirmed the clinical findings.
Fig.1 Morbidly obese bodies require special lifting devices to be handled in the morgue.
Individuals are usually considered morbidly obese if their weight is more than 80 to 100 pounds above their ideal body weight. A BMI above 40 indicates that a person is morbidly obese and therefore a candidate for bariatric surgery. A study has found that extreme obesity cuts short life expectancy an average of 6 1/2 years for those at the low end of “extremely obese,” and almost 14 years for those at the high end (Kitahara CM, et al. 2014).
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