# Medically Complicated Obesity



## one2one (Nov 2, 2013)

I ran across the term medically complicated obesity recently and was curious enough to go looking for a definition. I found a few: 
1) 100% or more over ideal BMI
2) obesity with a corollary like a thyroid disorder etc.
3) A term that applies to medical coding and indicates someone who is not a candidate for WLS

Can anyone shed a little light on what this really means?


----------



## Dr. Feelgood (Nov 3, 2013)

I'm certainly not a medical specialist, but I can see why you might be confused: these three definitions seem to be referring to three different things. And definition 1, 100% or more over ideal BMI, makes no sense. An ideal BMI is one in the range 18 1/2 to24, so 100% over that would be a BMI of 37-48. This looks like a fancy way to say "a BMI over 36."

The second definition makes more sense. If a person who is obese has a medical condition that might be affected by, say, weight-loss surgery, then a whole range of complications might be involved.

Definition 3 seems to be pretty much what you say: a coding term used to indicate that someone isn't a candidate for WLS, phrased in a neutral way (probably to avoid pissing off patients). OTOH, this might tie in with definition 1, as bariatric surgeons are leery of operating on very heavy patients. I don't know any more about it than you do, but it looks to me as if you've uncovered a term, with no single precise meaning, which is used to cover a variety of situations and conditions.


----------



## one2one (Nov 7, 2013)

Dr. Feelgood said:


> The second definition makes more sense. If a person who is obese has a medical condition that might be affected by, say, weight-loss surgery, then a whole range of complications might be involved.



I think it makes more sense, too. Particularly if you consider the relationship between obesity and the physiological events that contribute in creating additional adipose. I dream of a day when the medical profession looks for those conditions first instead of assuming overeating.


----------

