Obesity is as a chronic disease because it:
- affects more than a quarter of the American population
- causes many serious medical conditions
- causes at least 300,000 deaths in the U.S. each year
- is the second leading cause of unnecessary deaths
- carries annual healthcare costs of about $100 billion
According to a recent study by the RAND organization, obesity is more damaging to health than smoking, high levels of alcohol drinking, and poverty. Obesity affects all major bodily systems - heart, lung, muscle and bones.
Researchers have associated obesity to more than 30 medical conditions, and many agree that it is strongly related to at least 15 of those conditions.
