Northam Kayla, Hinds Malikiya, Bodepudi Sreevidya, Stanford Fatima Cody
MGH Weight Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
Department of Medicine, Dartmouth College, Lebanon, NH 03756, USA.
Life (Basel). 2024 Aug 27;14(9):1073. doi: 10.3390/life14091073.
Obesity is often viewed as a result of patient failure to adhere to healthy dietary intake and physical activity; however, this belief undermines the complexity of obesity as a disease. Rates of obesity have doubled for adults and quadrupled for adolescents since the 1990s. Without effective interventions to help combat this disease, patients with obesity are at increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes, heart attack, stroke, liver disease, obstructive sleep apnea, and more. Patients often go through several barriers before they are offered pharmacotherapy or bariatric surgery, even though evidence supports the use of these interventions earlier. This partially stems from the cultural barriers associated with using these therapies, but it is also related to healthcare provider bias and limited knowledge of these therapies. Finally, even when patients are offered treatment for obesity, they often run into insurance barriers that keep them from treatment. There needs to be a cultural shift to accept obesity as a disease and improve access to effective treatments sooner to help decrease the risk of health complications associated with obesity.
肥胖通常被视为患者未能坚持健康饮食摄入和体育活动的结果；然而，这种观念忽视了肥胖作为一种疾病的复杂性。自20世纪90年代以来，成年人的肥胖率翻了一番，青少年的肥胖率则翻了两番。如果没有有效的干预措施来帮助对抗这种疾病，肥胖患者患2型糖尿病、心脏病发作、中风、肝病、阻塞性睡眠呼吸暂停等疾病的风险会增加。患者在接受药物治疗或减肥手术之前往往会经历重重障碍，尽管有证据支持更早使用这些干预措施。这部分源于与使用这些疗法相关的文化障碍，但也与医疗服务提供者的偏见以及对这些疗法的了解有限有关。最后，即使患者能够获得肥胖症治疗，他们也常常会遇到保险障碍，导致无法接受治疗。需要进行文化转变，将肥胖视为一种疾病，并更快地改善有效治疗的可及性，以帮助降低与肥胖相关的健康并发症风险。
