Obesity and society: the need for urgent intervention

Overweight, which includes both overweight and obesity, represents a real and growing threat to the health of populations worldwide. Indeed, these problems of extreme corpulence are now so frequent that they are taking the place of conditions traditionally known for their seriousness on health, such as undernutrition and infectious diseases. What’s more, the comorbidities associated with obesity are manifold, including coronary heart disease, hypertension, stroke, certain types of cancer, non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, cholecystopathy, dyslipidemia, arthrosis and gout, lung disease, and so on. On a social level, obese people are victims of prejudice and discrimination, not only from those around them but also from health professionals, which explains their reluctance to seek medical or other assistance.