Obesity: types and treatments

Causes of obesity include a low resting metabolic rate, environmental factors, family behavior patterns, a poorly developed satiety response and reactive eating due to stress or anxiety. Morbid obesity is characterized by an increased number of adipocytes and a degree of irreversibility. Overeating increases the size of adipocytes; however, once adipocytes achieve their maximal size, proliferation is induced and massive, irreversible obesity may result. A syndrome of restrained eating produced by chronic dieting leads to hunger, frustration and rebound overeating. Treatment may be unsuccessful because of the failure to address specific causes of obesity in individual patients and the use of reducing regimens that are not designed to maintain weight loss. Recognition of the diverse clinical forms of obesity and their different etiologies permits treatment regimens to be more specific, increasing the likelihood of success. Even with this approach, treatment failure is common.