obesity

IPA/əʊˈbiːsəti/
KK[obˈisəti]IPA/əʊˈbiːsəti/

obesity — noun

1. the medical state of carrying so much extra body fat that a person's health is p

1.nounC1
Definition

the medical state of carrying so much extra body fat that a person's health is put at serious risk, often measured by body mass index.

Example

Doctors warn that childhood obesity has tripled in Taiwan since the 1990s.

collocation: childhood obesity

Obesity raises the chance of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

subject of health-risk verbs: raises, causes, leads to

Common collocations
  • childhood obesity
  • morbid obesity
  • rates of obesity
  • tackle obesity
  • fight obesity
  • obesity epidemic
  • obesity rates
Synonyms
  • overweight

    milder; describes being above a healthy weight without the medical severity of obesity

  • corpulence

    formal and old-fashioned; literary rather than medical

  • adiposity

    technical medical term for excess body fat tissue

Antonyms
  • thinness

    general opposite, not medical

  • leanness

    positive connotation, suggests fit and trim

Grammar Patterns

uncountable noun

Usage Note

Uncountable noun — never written with 'a' or in the plural ('an obesity', 'obesities' are wrong). Subject is typically a person or population group; common verbs are 'cause', 'lead to', 'tackle', 'fight'.

Common Mistakes

He has an obesity.
He has obesity.
obesity is uncountable; do not use 'a' or 'an'.
She suffers from obesities.
She suffers from obesity.
no plural form.

Word family

  • obese
    adjectiveC1
  • obesely
    adverbC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All four words describe carrying extra body fat, but they sit at different points on the formality and severity scale. 'Overweight' is the everyday term for being heavier than is healthy, without implying medical danger — a doctor might call a patient overweight before reaching the threshold for obesity. 'Obesity' is the standard medical label, used in clinics, public-health reports, and news, and usually defined by a body mass index of 30 or higher. 'Corpulence' is formal, literary, and slightly old-fashioned; you find it in novels rather than health pamphlets. 'Adiposity' is a technical word used by researchers to talk about fat tissue itself. So a teacher might say 'My nephew is a little overweight,' a doctor would write 'The patient has obesity,' and a science paper might track 'adiposity' across age groups.

obesity ↗overweight ↗corpulence ↗adiposity

Common collocations

Nouns

  • obesity rate
  • obesity epidemic
  • obesity crisis
  • childhood obesity
  • morbid obesity

Phrases

  • fight obesity
  • tackle obesity
  • combat obesity
  • rise in obesity
  • risk of obesity

Prepositions

  • obesity in (children, adults)
  • linked to obesity
  • suffer from obesity

Etymology

LatinFrenchEnglish

Borrowed into English in the early 1600s from French 'obésité', which came from Latin 'obesitas', a noun built on 'obesus' meaning 'fat' or 'having eaten oneself fat'. The Latin form combines 'ob-' (over, towards) with the past participle of 'edere' (to eat), giving a literal sense of 'eaten away at, fattened up'. The word stayed mostly in medical writing until the late 20th century, when public-health worry about rising body weight pushed it into everyday news.