September 25, 2000

Audio Researcher Joe Donnelly Obesity conference For more information contact Kim Johnson at KU's Department of Health, Sport and Exercise Sciences at (785) 864-0797, or University of Kansas, 104 Robinson Center, Lawrence KS 66045. A complete brochure is available online More articles What your doctor won't tell you Is obesity a disease? Body Mass Index Subscribe now to receive KU News by email

Contact: Kim Johnson, KU's Department of Health, Sport and Exercise Sciences, (785) 864-0797

Obesity misunderstood as a lack of control

LAWRENCE - Obese and overweight people suffer prejudice from the public and sometimes health professionals too, according to University of Kansas obesity researcher Joseph Donnelly.

Researchers now understand that obesity results not from willful overeating and laziness, but a combination of complex factors - genetic, metabolic, behavioral and environmental, Donnelly says. Federal health officials estimate that nearly half the population is obese or overweight.

On Sept. 29 and 30, KU is sponsoring its second conference on the treatment and prevention of obesity at the St. Luke's Hospital Spencer Center for Education, 44th and Wornall Road, Kansas City, Mo.

The KU conference will offer health professionals examples of how to treat and prevent obesity as well as look at the prejudice many overweight people experience, not only from the public but within the health professions, too.

"For the people who are involved in treating obesity, we got away from those attitudes a long time ago. But we're one hundredth of 1 percent of the population," Donnelly says.

"The rest of the general population still sees cartoons about the fat man and all the images of women who are incredibly thin," Donnelly adds, describing the general perception of obesity as the result of lack of control.

Donnelly says he uses a classic study in his classes at KU to illustrate the strength of prejudice overweight people experience.

Albert Stunkardt at the University of Pennsylvania asked overweight people if they would rather be overweight or have other debilitating conditions including suffering a stroke, being an amputee or even dying. More than 90 percent of the overweight respondents indicated they would rather endure the loss of a limb, loss of mobility due to a stroke, or even death, than be overweight.

Health risks associated with obesity include heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, gall bladder disease, sleep apnea and some cancers.