Obesity crisis lurks behind closed doors
A hidden army of obese Hong Kongers are living indoors for fear of being laughed at, says an expert who released figures yesterday showing 29 per cent of the adult population is grossly overweight.
About one in 20 adults weighs double their ideal body weight and are classified as morbidly obese, Chinese University of Hong Kong dean of medicine Sydney Chung Sheung-chee said.
'That figure may come as some surprise because when we walk in the street we don't see it,' Professor Chung said.
'But the truth of the matter is that morbidly obese patients tend to stay at home; they don't want to be seen.'
Professor Chung said nearly one-third of the population was obese or had a body mass index (BMI) of more than 25, a figure calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by height in metres squared.
The university's clinic at the Prince of Wales Hospital has about 200 patients with BMIs over 40 who are morbidly obese and require a new surgical technique to fight the problem.
It uses an adjustable silicon belt that is placed around the stomach with key-hole surgery and is gradually tightened so the patient can only eat small portions.
The belt does not need to be replaced and is tightened with a simple injection.
The technique has been used on five patients in Hong Kong, the first place in Asia to apply the method three months ago.
The patients' mean body weight was 138kg and their mean BMI 50. They were set a target of halving their weight in a year.
One patient, Mr Ngai, has shed 41kg since the operation, when he weighed 159kg.
The 42-year-old former boxer said he had been overweight since he was a child.
'In the past I tried meal replacement programmes but I always ended up larger than I was before,' Mr Ngai said.
'When I was really fat I could not do any exercise. After the surgery, if you eat too much your stomach will hurt, so you don't eat so much. Since the operation I am a lot more energetic.'
Professor Chung said the operation lasted less than an hour and was safer than other procedures because it used key-hole surgery. Most patients spend only three days in hospital and are placed on a fluid diet for the first month.
