Adipositas

Obesity

Obesity is a growing health problem which has now reached an epidemic dimension in Germany with a prevalence of approximately 20% in the adult population and a dramatic increase of childhood obesity. The main cause is a change of lifestyle during the last decades characterized by an inadequately high caloric intake, mainly from fat sources, and a lack of physical activity. Prevention of obesity must include strategies at the individual level in persons at specific risk and at the population level which requires an integrated public health policy. Prevention of obesity may be more successful and cost-effective than treatment of manifest obesity.