The difference between being overweight and being obese

Globally more than 1 billion adults are found to be overweight and around 3 hundred million of them can be categorized as obese. To differentiate between the 2, a general definition for being overweight is, when someone weighs over what’s considered to be healthy at his age & height whereas obesity is when the body weight is the consequence of accumulated fat.

A further concise definition for being overweight or for being obese could be by calculating the BMI or body mass index of a person. A body mass index or BMI can be calculated by dividing the weight of a person in kilograms by the height of the person in meters squared or by multiplying weight in pounds by 705 by height in inches twice.

A BMI between 18.5 & 24.9 is a healthy weight. BMI of 25 – 29.9 is overweight and BMI more than 30 is obese. BMI over 40 is morbidly obese and lethal.

BMI of a person is not always the accurate barometer as to if that person is overweight or not. The weight of a person is a combination of muscle and fat. If an individual is athletic, excess weight may be the result of more muscularity rather than fat. Other techniques to evaluate body fat and distribution of the body fat are measurements of circumference of waist, waist to hip circumference ratios and skinfold thickness, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography

An individual is regarded as morbidly obese if they have a BMI of 40 or more or if they are over 100 pounds overweight.  The people that are morbidly obese, remarkably raise the possibility of obesity relevant health conditions which lead to physical disabilities and also perhaps in death. Such medical issues also include diabetes, high blood pressure and certain kinds of cancer.  Morbid obesity is also considered to be a chronic disease.

BMI is but 1 of the predictors of obesity relevant diseases. Another one is the circumference of the waist as abdominal fat is a good predictor of obesity relevant diseases. 3^rd Indicator is the presence of the other risk factors linked to diseases which can be caused due to obesity like high blood pressure.

Additionally, an individual is more likely to have obesity relevant health issues when excess weight is around the id and not around his hips