Classification of Obesity

Doctors around the world recognize the obesity epidemic of the XXI century. Overweight - a huge problem not only for obese people, but also for doctors of all specialties, because overweight people are at increased risk for a variety of diseases. First place among them are occupied the diseases of the cardiovascular system. Unfortunately, with every day is growing and the number of children with this disease.

There are many classifications of obesity. Consider the most frequently used by physicians.

Classification of obesity according to body mass index (BMI)

• I stage - Exceeding the normal body weight at 10-29%;
• II stage - The excess of the normal body weight of 30-49%;
• III stage - The excess of the normal body weight of 50-99%;
• IV stage - Exceeding the normal body weight of 100% or more.

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Classification Depending on the cause of Obesity

• Nutritional obesity - due to the way of life of many people today. Unbalanced irregular meals, eating junk food and overeating combined with a sedentary lifestyle lead to the accumulation of excess body weight. Additional predisposing factors in this case are the hereditary tendency to obesity, tendency to stress, lack of sleep.
• Endocrine form of obesity is associated with a variety of diseases of the endocrine system. In this case, the deposition of excess fat in the body - this is a sign of underlying disease. Patients suffering from this form of the disease, you need a comprehensive treatment aimed primarily at correcting the hormonal levels in the body.
• Cerebral obesity may occur as a result infectious diseases, injuries, and tumors of the brain or some of its structures (hypothalamus, pituitary).
• Medicinal obesity may result from prolonged use of certain medications, such as glucocorticoids, combined oral contraceptives, antidepressants and others.

Classification obesity by type of localization of body fat

• Android obesity - is characterized in that the fat tissue deposited in the upper body (axillary region, stomach). This clinical picture is observed more often in patients with impaired glucose tolerance or diabetes, lipid metabolism disorders, hypertension, hyperandrogenism and hirsutism in women.
• Abdominal obesity - a special case of obesity, the developing as the first type. The accumulation of fat occurs mainly under the skin of the abdomen, threre is an increase in the volume of adipose tissue surrounding the internal organs.
• Gynoid type of obesity is characterized by localization of adipose tissue in the lower part of the body (in the thigh and gluteal region) and is more common in women. Comorbidity disease in this type of obesity  are the spine, joints and blood vessels of the lower extremities.
• Mixed type obesity - even distribution of excess body fat.

Morphological Classification of Obesity - Depending on whether, fat cells (adipocytes) are exposed to quantitative or qualitative changes:

• Hypertrophic obesity, when increases the size of each fat cell on the background of a stable indicator of their number;
• Hyperplastic obesity, which is characterized by an increase in the number of adipocytes; This form of obesity usually develops in childhood and hard to gives in to correction due to the fact that the number of fat cells remains unchanged even during heavy weight loss;
• Mixed obesity, when along with an increase in the number of fat cells - observed their enlargement at the expense of increasing the fat content in them.