ABSTRACT
Obesity, a global pandemic, has become a chronic health problem within a modern western society. Obesity mimics the iceberg phenomenon wherein there is more to it than what we perceive resulting in various physical and psychological problems. Obesity is defined as surplus body weight for given height. . Obesity has been triggered by the growth of economy caused as an effect of industrialization, and urbanization, associated sedentary lifestyle, and transition of nutrition to canned foods. In the last few years, globally, countries have witnessed the spike in the rate of obesity. The endangering effects presented by obesity lead to numerous comorbidities that are being masked by the body dysmorphism. Metabolic disorders like diabetes mellitus type 2 and various cardiovascular risks hamper the regular metabolism of the body. Exploring the cascading effects in changing sedentary lifestyles draws many parallels to the surge in overweight and obesity among the people following such lifestyles. Increased adoption of sedentary lifestyles has resulted in a cascading effect on various metabolic disorders associated with obesity, globally. To address this surging concern, researchers around the globe have come up with multiple indices and parameters such as BMI, ABSI, VAI, BIA, DEXA, waist-hip ratio, and waist circumference, to quantify obesity in one final equation. However, these parameters have failed to give a conclusive summation that helps to identify the pre-symptoms of obesity. Similarly, variations in physical size and different body compositions for different weight categories usually pose tremendous challenges to quantify obesity. To make things more complicated various forms of obesity are being described and each has got its implication as far as the development of cardiovascular burden is concerned.This challenge presents the need to derive and identify a much robust, accurate and explicit index that would apply universally to all forms of obesity and would guide preventive and therapeutic strategies thereoff. In this article, an effort is being made to compare various parameters available globally to tail off the better and more reliable indicator available.