If you are overweight or obese, carrying this extra weight puts you at risk for developing many diseases, especially heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. Losing this weight helps to prevent and control these diseases. Obesity is a condition of excess body fat. It is the most common form of malnutrition in the Western world.
Obesity thus contributes to premature mortality.
Of all obesity-related diseases, noninsulin dependent diabetes is most clearly and strongly associated with obesity. Women generally have more subcutaneous fat than men, but men appear to suffer a greater cardiovascular risk from a given degree of fat than women. The distribution of body fat may be an indicator of this difference. This distribution around the abdomen, referred to as upper body obesity, is associated with increased cardiovascular risk factors. Lower body obesity is more typical in women, who tend to accumulate fat in the hips, gluteal regions, and extremities, a distribution that does not appear to be associated with increased cardiovascular risk factors.