BMI and Classification

The first step to determine whether you are obese or not there is to know the body mass index (BMI), which is obtained by a calculation between height and weight of the individual.

Although obesity is an individual clinical condition has become a serious public health problem that is growing: it appears that excessive body weight predisposes people to several diseases, particularly cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus type 2, sleep-apnea and osteoarthritis

In practice, obesity may typically be assessed in terms of health by measuring body mass index (BMI) but also in terms of its distribution through waist circumference or the measurement of waist hip ratio. Moreover, the presence of obesity needs to be considered in the context of other risk factors and associated complications.

Classification

You can set an index of obesity, defined as the ratio between actual and ideal weight.

Depending on the source of obesity, it is classified into the following types:

    1. Exogenous obesity or Acquired Obesity due to excessive eating.
    2. Endogenous obesity or Secondary Obesity which is caused by metabolic abnormalities. Such as hypothalamic obesity, Cushing's syndrome or polycystic ovary syndrome
    3. Infancy type Obesity or Constitutional Obesity, which begins in very early childhood and is usually related to a strong family history of Obesity

Among the endogenous causes, we are talking about when obesity is caused by endocrine dysfunction in some endocrine glands, such as the thyroid.

     * Obesity hypothyroid
     * Obesity gonadal

However, adipocytes are increased in size by the action of free fatty acids that penetrate them and, through an esterification process, are converted back into triglycerides. Before they have been the result of activation of circulating VLDL in the absorption of fatty acids.

It is a disease whose origins involve different factors, many of them we still do not know very well. Genes, environment, sedentary lifestyle, are basic conditions that are implicated in the genesis of obesity as well as those produced by drugs or disease.