What is obesity? Is obesity a disease?

The eating habits of people have changed many times since the day they appeared on the world history stage. The human body has also been shaped according to these nutritional habits and has adjusted growth and development accordingly.

There are many differences between the energy needed by people who were hunting and gathering in ancient times and the energy needed by people in today's modern life. The more the human body moves, the more energy it needs. This means that today's man's energy needs is far below the need he felt compared to the man of the past.

In order to achieve this balance, people now need to consume less food. The definition of balanced and adequate nutrition is that the amount of energy taken with food and the energy spent are equal, and that the distribution of this energy to macro and micro nutrients is proportional.

Failure to achieve this balance has led to many health problems, especially obesity (excessive obesity). In order to prevent obesity and the many acute and chronic diseases it causes, it is very important to maintain a healthy and balanced diet and ideal weight.

Obesity is simply defined as an excessive and abnormal increase in body fat. Among the public, obesity is perceived by some people only as a problem related to appearance.

Although the terms "excess weight" and "excessive obesity" are used interchangeably, they do not mean the same medical terms. Weight ranges were determined according to body mass index.

Today, obesity is not considered as a cosmetic problem, but as a complex metabolic disease with long-term adverse effects on multiple organ systems. Due to its complex metabolic infrastructure, the application of different diets, which are frequently advertised in different communication channels, may be ineffective and/or harmful to the patient.