Obesity is on the rise in the United Status and across the globe, with recent reports estimating that nearly half of Americans will have obesity by 2030.1 This trend is thought to be due to multiple factors, including higher consumption of high-calorie, low-nutrient foods and decreased physical activity, as well as environmental and genetic factors.
Although inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is associated with chronic intestinal inflammation that portends malabsorption and nutritional deficiencies, which reduce body weight, the prevalence of obesity in patients with IBD is, in fact, rising in parallel to the rise in the general population. Large population-based studies have estimated that 15% to 40% of adults with IBD are obese, defined as a body mass index (BMI) greater than 30 kg/m2. An additional 25% to 40% of adults fall into the overweight category (BMI, 25-29.9 kg/m2).2,3 A 2019 US-based cross-sectional and longitudinal cohort study of more than 7,000 patients with IBD similarly found that 19.5% of patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) were obese and 28% overweight; 20.3% of patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) were obese and 29.5% overweight.3
It is, therefore, important for providers to recognize the potential effects of obesity on IBD disease course, treatment response, and surgical outcomes; to understand the obesity treatment options available to patients with IBD; and to further explore the ways in which treatment of obesity could modify long-term disease course and outcomes.