Women and Obesity

Problems related to obesity in women include 1) menstrual disorders and decreased fertility associated with obesity in the adolescent and reproductive periods, 2) increased perinatal abnormalities in obese pregnant women, and 3) increased incidence of cardiovascular diseases, cancer of the corpus uteri, and breast cancer in obese postmenopausal women. Menstrual disorders and low fertility occur frequently in both obese and underweight women. The incidence of menstrual abnormalities is lowest when the body mass index (BMI) is 22–23. Recently, attention has been given to an increase in underweight rather than obese pregnant women and the associated decrease in the birth weight of infants. However, obesity in pregnant women is associated with a higher incidence of complications of pregnancy (e.g., preeclampsia and gestational diabetes) and abnormal labor. Obesity, particularly that characterized by the accumulation of visceral fat, increases in women after 40 years of age, and its incidence in women in their 50s reaches a level similar to that in men. With this increase, hyperlipidemia and cardiovascular diseases increase markedly in postmenopausal women. In addition, cancer of the corpus uteri and breast cancer are closely related to obesity