LAUSR

According to the World Health Organization, more than 650 million adults in 2016 were obese. In addition, 39% of adults over age 18 years old were overweight. It has been estimated that at least 2.8 million people die each year because of being either overweight or obese. These grim statistics are even more prominent in the United States. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 42.5% of US adults over the age of 20 have obesity as reported in the 2017-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, while an additional 31% are overweight. Thus, almost three quarters of the adult population in the United States are currently overweight or have obesity! While most physicians understand the significant links between obesity, coronary heart disease, diabetes, and the metabolic syndrome, many health care professionals do not recognize that obesity also predisposes individuals to multiple complications from COVID-19. Thus, during this terrible pandemic of COVID-19, the twin epidemic of obesity has exacerbated both the degree and severity of illness and resulted in substantial increases in mortality. While the metabolic complications of obesity (eg, coronary heart disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and even some cancers) are well known to practitioners of lifestyle medicine, the link between obesity and COVID-19 is less well known. Since obesity is in many ways the quintessential lifestylerelated disease, it is important for all physicians to counsel individuals who are overweight and those with obesity that they are substantially increasing their risk of the terrible complications related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.