Achieving a healthy body weight: Diet and exercise interventions for type 2 diabetes
The problem of obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the United States (see also other chapters by Boan and McMahon), and evidence of its negative impact on health is rapidly accumulating. Excessive body mass, defined as a body-mass index (BMI) over 25 kg/M2 (overweight; OW) and ≥30 kg/M2 (obese; OB) is linked with an increased risk for a number of serious chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease (CVD), hypertension, and some cancers, as well as type 2 diabetes (1-3). The relationship between OW/OB and diabetes is exceedingly strong, with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes increasing along with OW/OB in a dose-dependent manner (3). In fact, as many as 90 percent of all type 2 diabetic individuals fit the OW/OB BMI criteria (4). Thus, OW/OB and type 2 diabetes are “inextricably linked” (5), the term “diabesity” having been coined by Astrup and Finer (6) to emphasize the close connection between the two disorders.
