Obesity and overweight

Obesity is having an excess amount of body fat for your height. It raises your risk for serious health problems. These include type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

Many things affect how your body uses calories and whether you gain weight, including your genes, your age, how you eat, and how active you are. The medicines you take and health conditions you have can also affect your weight.

To know if your weight is in the obesity range, your doctor looks at your body mass index (BMI). BMI is a number that is calculated from your weight and your height. If your BMI is 30.0 or higher, it falls within the obesity range. Talk with your doctor about what a healthy weight is for you.

To figure out your BMI for yourself, you can use an online tool, such as www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm on the National Institutes of Health website.

Losing even 5% of your body weight can improve your health. Some people can lose weight by eating less and moving more. Some people take medicines or have surgery to help them lose weight.

You're more likely to have success if you make a plan with your doctor. Your doctor can help you set goals that matter to you and focus on ways to improve your health.

Your doctor may also suggest counseling or other types of support. If you use food to cope with depression or boredom, counseling can help you learn new skills to manage your feelings.

Be ready. Plan to start during a time when you don't have too many events like holidays, social events, and high-stress periods. It may be harder to stay with your plan during these times.

Decide on your first few steps. A good strategy is to make small changes focused on improving your health. For example, you might have a piece of fruit instead of a less healthy snack, plan a 10-minute daily walk, or add more vegetables to a meal.

Find your support people. Connect with people who understand how important these changes are to you. Ask caring family members or friends to help you stay with your plan. If there are people who might make it harder to stick to your plan, think about how you can handle that.

Try tracking. Keeping track of your food, activity, and weight can help you succeed with your plan. There are lots of free apps that make tracking easy. Or you can simply write down things like:

• What and how much you ate and how many calories it had.
• Details about where you ate, who was with you, and how you felt before and after eating.
• What you did to be active and how long you were active.

Learn from tracking. Tracking can help you see your progress, remind you of your successes, and avoid setbacks. As you track, look for eating patterns that you may want to change and note your successes. Notice things like:

• When you eat and whether you skip meals.
• How often you eat out.
• How many fruits and vegetables you eat.
• When you eat beyond feeling full.
• When and why you eat for reasons other than being hungry.

These patterns can help you find ways to make small changes to achieve your weight goals.

If you stray from your plan, don't be hard on yourself. Think about what happened and ways to avoid doing the same thing in the future.