Morbid obesity is a known and proven killer.

It affects and kills those people who through one reason or another fail to look after their general health. It's a preventable disease that with a bit of common sense and perseverance can be avoided. However, those who suffer from it can expect to live 9 years less than a person not affected..

Until recently it was considered to be confined to the affluent and self-indulgent west, and although western countries are most affected, it's now started to be seen in countries that are becoming more industrialized and where the standard of living is starting to rise. However the problem doesn't just affect adults - the incidence of this disease amongst children is growing equally as fast.

So what is obesity, what are its causes, and why is morbid obesity regarded as a killer.

Obesity is an aggressive form of being overweight - that is the sufferer is well over an ideal weight level for a person's age and height. He's at a weight level that has the potential to cause severe life threatening health problems.

Obesity is caused by two main factors: firstly by eating an unhealthy diet of high calorie, high salt, high fat and processed food with an absence of fresh fruit and vegetables; secondly failing to get enough physical exercise each day.

Morbid obesity is a much more sever form of obesity that causes a multitude of health problems that can lead to death - problems such as type 2 diabetes, and heart disease and heart failure.

The growth in the incidence of obesity has exploded in recent years, especially in the last 20, leading the World Health Organization to start monitoring the incidence of the problem and how its affecting the level of health services offered in each country. Many countries are having to dramatically increase their health budgets to cope with the increasing number of sufferers.

Once regarded as being a self -imposed social problem rather than a health problem, obesity is now considered to be a disease, and a major chronic disease at that. With over 300 million people affected world wide, and an estimated 1 billion people in total being classed as over weight, obesity can truly be called an epidemic.

The US situation
This is the country most affected by this insidious disease. It's said that over 30% of the adult population are grossly over weight, with about 9 million of them suffering from morbid obesity. In the Afro-American and Spanish -speaking ethnic groups, the incidence is said to be higher than 50%.

After 50 years of a constantly rising figure, the forecast is that the incidence of the disease will increase in the years ahead.

Whilst the statistics for adults are worrying, they are more so for children as it's estimated that over 80% of obese children will have the disease when they're adults. Presently child obesity in the age range of 6 to 19 is over 15%, with the percentage of children classed as being over weight is approaching 25%.

US Health Department figures show deaths directly attributable to the disease number over 300,000 per year. This is the second biggest cause of death after tobacco consumption, but with the introduction of health warnings on cigarette packs, it won't be too long before obesity and its related medical problems is the number 1 killer.

The UK Situation
Here the disease is approaching the level of that in the US. In the past 25 years the incidence amongst adults has trebled with the result that over 25% of the adult population now have the problem. In the older age groups such as the over mid 65s the figure is closer to 28%.

With regard to child obesity, the age group of 11 to 15 experiences levels of about 25%, whereas in the 2 to 10 age group the figure is 16% for boys and 11% for girls.

These figures suggest that in the not too distant future when today's children are adults, the obesity level in the UK will increase dramatically unless steps are taken now to address this situation.

In Australia the adult obesity rate is slightly less than that of the UK at 21% whilst the rate for children is similar to the UK. However national awareness of the impending problem means that Australia is approaching obesity from the national perspective. Here the central government, rather than localized government is taking the initiative, whilst the state governments are directing their efforts through the schools.

In European countries the situation is rather mixed - some are experiencing obesity levels similar to the UK (Malta and Germany) whereas in others the rate of increase is slowly declining ( Holland and Scandinavia)

But the overall story through out the world is that governments at all levels are now aware of the dangers of the obesity problem and are taking steps to reduce its incidence.

In November 2006 a World Health Organization meeting called the WHO European Ministerial Conference on Counteracting Obesity was held in Turkey to discuss the European problem of increasing obesity levels.

Although it was a meeting for European countries, many non-European countries sent observers.

The objective of the meeting was threefold:

Firstly to ensure that every country puts the problem high on their political and health agenda.

Secondly to ensure a greater degree of awareness and action from those at the top

Thirdly to encourage and promote international cooperation to confront the problem

The medium term aim was to set up a committee to plan for noticeable changes in the situation in the following 5 years, with the current trend completely reversed by 2015.

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