Then there is indigestion aggravated by so much abdominal fat. Urinary incontinence is an often undisclosed but embarrassing symptom, particularly for women, and is very common for the obese. Snoring and sleep apnoea have a strong association with abdominal obesity. Venous stasis, cellulitis, oedema of the legs and resulting leg ulcers are commonly associated with obesity and can be the bane of both patients' and GPs' lives. Anaesthetists and surgeons are well aware of the increased risk of surgery for their obese patients.
Venous thrombosis is another added risk.
It is the metabolic factors that give rise to the main reasons for increased mortality in the obese which has effects by aggravating several of the causal risk factors including high blood pressure and high lipids resulting in atheroma formation. Being overweight is now increasingly recognised as a major preventable cause of a range of major cancers including colon, breast, endometrial and prostate cancer. The Framingham study identified overweight as being similar in importance to smoking in predicting premature death with most of the effect being due to accelerated cardiovascular disease. It is not only the above problems that affect quality of life. There is also the way obese people are treated by others and the low self esteem they endure because of the difficulties to function as well as others in every day life skills.