Health status
People who are overweight, and particularly those who are obese, have higher rates of premature death and chronic illness than people of normal weight, both overall and from a range of specific conditions(footnote 1) . Some of these conditions include cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, sleep apnoea, osteoarthritis, psychological problems and reproductive problems for women.
In this section, a number of long-term health conditions are examined to see whether they are more prevalent among people who were overweight or obese in Australia.
1 WHO (World Health Organisation) 2000. Obesity: preventing and managing the global epidemic. Report of a WHO consultation. Technical report series 894. Geneva: WHO <back