“Obesity” specifically refers to an excessive amount of body fat. “Overweight” refers to an excessive amount of body weight that includes muscle, bone, fat, and water. As a rule, women have more body fat than men. Most health care professionals agree that men with more than 25 percent body fat and women with more than 30 percent body fat are considered obese. These numbers should not be confused with the body mass index (BMI), however, which is more commonly used by health care professionals to determine the effect of body weight on the risk for some diseases.

“Women with a waist measurement of more than 35 inches and men with a waist measurement of more than 40 inches may have more health risks than people with lower waist measurements because of their body fat distribution.”

Extremely obese people are more likely to be injured than the people who have a normal body mass index.

A new study on the subject says about one out of every four obese people report personal injuries in men and about one out of every five obese women report the same. This may be compared to the one out of six normal weight men and one out of eight normal weight women who report such injuries.

Researchers report that while there have been other researchers linking obesity with increased risk of injuries, but the research for that had been conducted on a typical workforce or children, this is one of the first studies that try to find out the risk of injury to obese people of the general population.

Body mass index (BMI) ranging from 18.5 to 24.9 is considered to be normal. People are considered overweight if the index ranges between of 25 to 29.9, while BMI over 30 is considered to be obese.

Researchers feel that overexertion and falls are the two most common causes of injuries in obese and extremely obese people. As obesity can limit the amount of physical strain a person can take, this may cause the obese people to stretch themselves and fall.

Reference: American Journal of Preventive Medicine, July 2005 – [Source]