Obesity Harder on Women: Report

Obesity causes more physical and social harm to women than men, an expert told delegates Wednesday at the International Obesity Congress in Australia.

Berit Heitmann, a nutritional and medical research advisor to the Danish government, said research shows that being "obese and female is as bad as it gets," Agence France Presse reported.

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Obese women suffer more social stigma than obese men, Heitmann said. "Obese women are deprived of friendships, intimate relationships, social interactions, education, income and respect," she said.

Heitmann also said obese women suffer more health problems -- such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease -- than obese men, AFP reported.

However, obese men and women have similar death rates. This may be because women tend to collect fat on the backside, while men collect it more on the stomach, where it is more dangerous to health, she said.

In related news, a study by the Royal National Institute of the Blind in England found that obese people have double the risk of vision loss. This is because obesity increases the risk of diabetes, cataracts, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration, BBC News reported.

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