Today, one of my patients died from complication of obesity. Since her admission to hospital, all the physicians involved in the care knew that we may not be able to help her live long. Few months ago, her daughter died because of obesity too. I did meet with the patient and the family at an earlier time in the ICU family room, I could not help notice that 7 out of the 9 family members were very obese and the other two were overweight. I hope and pray that all of us should be aware of the Obesity and it’s deadly consequences.
I am an internist since 2003 and started specializing in Obesity since then. As an internist, I do get to see a wide variety of diseases in outpatient setting as well as inpatient setting. I always teach my patients about how important it is to maintain a healthy life style, to avoid smoking, to avoid excessive or regular alcohol use, and prevent weight gain at its earliest. These healthy habits can save us from most of the medical problems.
During my residency training, I saw many patients suffering from cigarettes smoking related disease. I remember that I started teaching my patients not to smoke. I told them that I will never smoke even if somebody gave me a million dollars. Life is not good if you cannot breath well, even with a million dollars in your pocket.
Now as I see many of the obesity related conditions in many of my patients, maintaining healthy weight has become so crucial that the bet has increased a thousand time. I do not complete my consultation without life style modification and stressing on maintenance of healthy weight. Life is not good when we are carrying excessive weight and multiple diseases because of it--yes, even if you were a billionaire. If I am given a choice either to be an obese billionaire or a lean and healthy person, without a doubt, I wish to be a lean and healthy person. Of course, having both is better. I believe it is extremely important for everybody to maintain a healthy weight.