Providing Advanced Weight Loss Solutions at our Cincinnati Area Practice in Fairfield

At Mercy Healthy Weight Solutions, we understand and empathize with the challenges you face. It is hard to prevent weight gain, and even harder to lose weight by yourself. Fortunately, our expert team is here to help. As our many successful patients have shown, our weight loss program is uniquely effective in combating obesity. At our Fairfield practice, weight loss surgery and long-term support and counseling are provided to help our patients overcome their challenges.

Defining Obesity?

Obesity is defined as having such a high proportion of body fat that it interferes with one’s health. Obesity recognized as a disease and is strongly tied to both heredity and lifestyle factors such as eating and exercising habits. Nearly one in three American adults can be classified as obese, making obesity one of the most serious health problems in the United States today. For those who are unable to lose weight by other means, today there are a number of effective obesity surgery procedures available. At our Fairfield practice, we provide gastric bypass surgery, adjustable gastric banding, sleeve gastrectomy, and other procedures.

Consequences of Obesity

Obesity shortens one’s lifespan and decreases his or her quality of life. Each year, obesity is a factor in hundreds of thousands of premature deaths, and obesity-related healthcare costs are in the tens of billions of dollars. This is why our bariatric surgeon and staff are dedicated to finding ways to combat this epidemic. At our practice, obesity surgery, counseling and other services help our patients take the important steps towards improved health and longevity.

Conditions Related to Obesity

Obesity tends to be accompanied by various other health problems know as co-morbidities. These conditions range from type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain kinds of cancer to psychological problems, including depression. All of them are potentially serious, and many are life-threatening.

• Cancer: Obesity is strong associated with cancers of the esophagus, colon and rectum, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and kidneys in both men and women. The same is true with cancers of the prostate and stomach in men, and also with cancers of the breast, uterus, cervix, and ovaries in women. Overall, obese men die of cancer 52 percent more than those of a healthy weight; for obese women, the rate is 62 percent.
• Diabetes: Two-thirds of patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes are classified as overweight. Type 2 diabetes accounts for more than 90 percent of the almost 20 million cases of diabetes in the United States.
• Heart disease: Heart disease, most commonly in the form of a partial or complete blockage of the coronary arteries, is much more common among the obese. Obese patients are twice as likely to experience heart failure as those of healthy weight.
• High blood pressure: Chronic high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, affects the obese significantly more than it does those of healthy weight. More than one in four significantly overweight men has high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
• Arthritis: Carrying excess weight causes the soft connective tissue in the joints to break down and deteriorate, often forming bone spurs. This is known as osteoarthritis.
• Sleep apnea: Excess weight put pressure on the respiratory passages. In extreme cases, the passages can close momentarily, interrupting breathing. This condition is called obstructive sleep apnea.
• High cholesterol: Elevated blood cholesterol levels greatly increase the risk of heart disease and heart attack. Two in ten significantly overweight men and three in ten significantly overweight women suffer from high cholesterol.
• Depression: There is no doubt that being overweight is difficult emotionally and psychologically. Failed dieting, the disapproval of friends, family, and strangers, discrimination in the workplace and other factors conspire to create perfectly understandable problems with self-esteem. Many people who are overweight struggle with depression for years without help. As part of our Mission at Mercy Healthy Weight Solutions is to address depression through both counseling and weight loss. The physical and psychological components of obesity must be treated together for effective recovery.

Because these conditions pose such serious dangers, the professionals at our Cincinnati area practice in Fairfield are committed to helping patients lose weight through obesity surgery and other means. In doing so, we are able to help our patients live healthier, happier lives and increased self-esteem and self-confidence.

Am I at Risk for Developing Obesity?

There are several risk factors associated with obesity, including:

• Genetics: Your genetic makeup plays a role in how your body stores and distributes fat, how efficiently it converts food into energy, and how it burns calories during exercise. While genetic factors do not guarantee that a person will be obese, they do play a significant role.
• Family History: If your parents and other relatives are obese, you are significantly more likely to be obese yourself due to genetic and environmental factors.
• Lifestyle: If you live a sedentary lifestyle, you are significantly more likely to become obese. Individuals who are not physically active on the job or at home do not burn as many calories, so more gets stored as fat on the body. Additionally, people who eat more calories than needed tend to become obese.
• Age: Your risk of developing obesity climbs as you grow older. With age, muscle mass drops and metabolism slows. Also, older people tend to be less physically active. These changes reduce your calorie needs, and if you do not change your diet to reflect this you may become obese.
• Gender: Women are significantly more likely to be obese than men because they tend to have less muscle mass and tend to burn fewer calories at rest.

Evaluating Your Risk

To evaluate your risk, we use a variety of measurements, including waist circumference and body mass index (BMI). Men with waists that measure more than 40 inches may be obese; the same is true for women with waists over 35 inches. A BMI of 30 or more also indicates obesity, while a BMI of 40 or more indicates morbid obesity. Of course we will help you analyze your BMI to determine if obesity surgery or other measures would be appropriate. To learn more, please feel free to contact Mercy Healthy Weight Solutions today.

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