OBESITY AND HEALTHCARE

Obesity and Healthcare



Obesity and Healthcare

Introduction

Overweight and obesity have become key challenges for public health. The United Kingdom show lower levels of obesity (about a quarter of adults are obese), but the long-term trend is similar and visible not only in developed, but also developing countries. A growing number of children, youngsters, and adults are overweight in the United Kingdom. As a result of that trend, public communication on this issue has increased in the last years. Policymakers have coined the term obesity epidemic to label the associated challenge in a simple, illustrative, but at the same time also somewhat misleading way.

This entry starts with an elaborated and precise definition of the key terms overweight and obesity. Medical and economic aspects of the problem are described, and social constructivism and framing are presented as promising theoretical perspectives for a critical analysis of the obesity epidemic from a communication science perspective. Obesity can be counteracted by policies focusing on the individual level or the societal level. Opportunities and challenges for communication about obesity are suggested in the last paragraph.

Discussion

Definition of Overweight and Obesity

Obesity is commonly defined as a severe state of being overweight. This verbal definition is complemented by a quantitative specification of the boundaries between underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obesity. The World Health Organization (WHO) and most experts in this field refer to the body mass index (BMI) as a simple indicator relating the weight of an individual to his or her height. BMI is defined as the weight in kilograms (w), divided by the square of the height (h) in meters (kg/m2) (Gard 2005, Pp. 114-140). To give an example in both standard and metric units: An adult who weighs 170 pounds (77 kg) and whose height is 6 feet (1.828 m) will have a BMI of 23.0:

BMI = 77 kg/ (1.828 m) 2 = 77/3.341584 = 23.0 kg/m2.

The person in the previous example with a BMI of 23.0 is of normal weight. The same person would be classified as overweight and pre-obese (BMI = 25.1) with a weight of 185 pounds (83.9 kg) and as obese (BMI = 30.1) with a weight of 221 pounds (100.24 kg).

Anyone not familiar with their own BMI or with the metric units or without a calculator at hand can use one of the many online BMI calculators that make it easy to determine this index using both standard and metric units (Hepworth 2006, Pp. 331-341).

Medical Aspects of Overweight

Overweight and obesity are caused by an imbalance of energy intake (nutrition) and energy expenditure (physical activity). If the energy intake exceeds the energy expenditure, the body saves this energy in the form of fat, associated with a weight increase. If the energy intake is lower than the energy expenditure, the body takes the lacking energy from the fat, resulting in a weight loss. This physiological mechanism has been instrumental for survival in pre-modern societies with a very irregular supply of food and long periods of ...