The goal of obesity treatment is to reach and stay at a healthy weight. This improves your overall health and lowers your risk of developing complications related to obesity. You may need to work with a team of health professionals — including a dietitian, behavioral counselor or an obesity specialist — to help you understand and make changes in your eating and activity habits. Weight-loss surgery for obesity may be considered if you have tried other methods to lose weight that haven’t worked and:

• You have extreme obesity (BMI of 35 or higher)
• Your BMI is 35 to 39.9, and you also have a serious weight-related health problem, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, etc…

In general, you are not considered obese until your body weight is at least 20% higher than it should be. The most common way to determine whether or not you’re a healthy weight is through a little thing called the body mass index, or BMI. BMI calculations are done by taking your weight in kilograms divided by the square of your height in meters. If your BMI is already over 24.9 and you have some of the symptoms below, consider chatting with your doctor about whether weight loss could improve your well-being.
1. It’s just uncomfortable to exercise. Like it or not, physical activity is a necessary part of a healthy lifestyle. But if your weight holds you back, weight loss could make moving way more fun, which will ultimately help you stick to any fitness goal.
2. Your snoring could wake the dead, and you constantly wake up groggy. If you snore like crazy and rarely get a good night’s sleep, you may suffer from sleep apnea, a condition in which irregular breathing disrupts your sleep. Excess weight can bring it on: When your body stores fat around the neck, it can narrow the airway to cause shallow breathing or pauses in breathing.
3. You have tender spots everywhere. Inflammation can make the fatty tissue beneath your skin feel tender to the touch, kind of like spotty bruising. If your BMI is especially high, and you feel pain in random places, weight loss could help.
4. You’re tired. (All. The. Time.) Internal inflammation caused by excess fat can lead to a perpetual state of fatigue. If you have an elevated BMI, and routine tasks like grocery shopping exhaust you, your extra pounds could be the culprit.
5. You’re pretty much always hungry — even though you eat plenty. Of course, this could be a sign that you’re eating the wrong foods, like candy, which lack the fiber, protein, and healthy fat that keep you full. But it could also be a sneaky symptom of insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes — especially if you’ve had an elevated BMI for years, plus blurry vision, tingling, or numbness in your hands and feet, extreme thirst, or unusually frequent pit stops. Over time, excess weight can trigger these conditions, while weight loss can reverse them. (Obviously see your doctor for a formal  diagnosis though.)
6. Your doc says you have high blood pressure or high cholesterol. weight loss can bring these numbers down without medication, which is safer, cheaper, and more sustainable than popping pills forever.
7. Your waist circumference is greater than 35 inches. Not to put a hard-and-fast number on health, but science suggests that excessive belly fat can increase your risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. People distribute weight in different places and that waist circumference alone isn’t the most accurate way to assess health. But if your BMI is elevated and your waist circumference tops 35 inches (grab a measuring tape and exhale as you hold it just over your hip bones to check), chat with your doc to see if you should consider sizing down for health’s sake.
8. You lost a grandparent or parent to cancer. Excess fat can produce excess estrogen, which is linked to breast cancer, and other kinds of hormones that may promote tumor growth, according to the National Cancer Institute. A family history of cancer can increase your risk from the get-go. While there’s not much clinical evidence to prove that weight loss can protect you entirely,
many observational studies have linked lower weight gain during adulthood to overall lower cancer risk.
9. Your knees, hips, and back hurt. Excess weight can put extra pressure on the joints, which wears down the tissue around them and makes moving uncomfortable, according to information from the National Institutes of Health.
10. You’ve gained a few pounds every year since before you can remember. When you’re growing, it’s normal to gain weight over time. But if your weight continues to soar after your height peaks, your doc may recommend behavioral changes to steady the scale and avoid all the sucky
symptoms above.

And if you think you need to lose weight for your health? Definitely get a second opinion — your doctor can help you make realistic tweaks to your diet and lifestyle to promote steady, healthy weight loss over time and maintain the results for good.

Health Problems Caused by Obesity
1. Heart disease and cardiovascular problems: Obesity can affect your heart health in a variety of ways. When it comes to coronary heart disease, your risk rises as your weight rises. Coronary heart disease is essentially a plaque buildup inside of your coronary arteries. These arteries are vital to our health as they supply the oxygen-rich blood to your heart. Obesity also has a direct link to heart failure, as your heart can’t pump the amount of blood your body needs.
2. Type 2 diabetes: Diabetes is a chronic condition that alters the way the body processes blood, sugar, or glucose. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes and usually happens in people who are overweight. If you have type 2 diabetes your body isn’t properly breaking down insulin. Diabetes is one of the leading causes of early death, blindness, and stroke.
3. Some forms of cancer: The world cancer research says that roughly 20% of cancer cases in the US are linked to body weight, unhealthy diets, excess alcohol consumption, or could be prevented. Being overweight increases your chances of breast, kidney, pancreas, colon and rectum,
esophagus, and endometrium cancer.
4. Osteoarthritis: Osteoarthritis is caused by the aging joint and obesity. Essentially, the excess weight puts even more strain on your joints. If you have osteoarthritis, your joint cartilage is degenerating.
5. Sleep Apnea: Sleep apnea occurs if your breathing cycle alters while you’re asleep. Most commonly people with this condition will have more pauses while they breathe when asleep. This condition is linked to obesity because it is more common in people who have more fat stored
around their necks. The excess fat makes the airway more narrow and breathing more difficult.
6. Chronic knee and back injuries: Because of the excess weight that is on the body of an obese person there is an increased amount of strain on the body’s bones, muscles, ligaments, joints, and organs. This can cause lots of chronic aches and pains in areas like your back, knees, etc. This
also lends itself to medical conditions like knee arthritis, osteoporosis, bulging discs, lordosis, compression fractures, etc.