Excerpt

In 1995, the National Obesity Education Initiative of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), in cooperation with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), convened the first Expert Panel on the Identification, Evaluation, and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults to develop clinical practice guidelines for primary care practitioners.

The impetus for these guidelines was the recognition that the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States is increasing, and that practitioners need to be alerted to the accompanying health risks. According to the latest statistics from the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 97 million Americans are overweight or obese. Excess weight is often accompanied by high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and other health problems. The total costs attributable to obesity-related disease approach $100 billion annually in the United States.