PRIN SIDERALE – Susceptibility to Infectious Diseases in obEsity: an endocRine trAnslational socioLogic Evaluation is a research project coordinated by researchers at the Laboratory of Psychology and Social Processes in Sport of the University of Rome “Foro Italico.”

According to a recent estimate by the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1.9 billion adults aged 18 years and older were overweight, of these more than 650 million adults were obese, declaring it a global epidemic condition. Although the prevalence of obesity has increased in countries with increasing urbanization, recent data suggest that the same rate of increase is observed more rapidly in rural and urban areas in low- and middle-income regions. The main cause of excess weight is the introduction of calories in excess of energy expenditure, influenced by sedentary lifestyle and the large availability of high-energy, mostly processed foods that characterizes our society.

Emerging data over the past decades indicate an association between obesity and infectious diseases. Several epidemiological data suggest that body weight is associated with the rate of risk of infection: normal weight has the lowest risk of infection while this risk increases moving to either side of this line, in overweight/obesity and underweight.

In order to understand the complexity of the phenomenon and discern its causes, it is necessary to consider not only the environmental, urban, climatic, and lifestyle variables of individuals with obesity, but also to assess the interaction between social self-image, past and present affective environment, and cultural beliefs that influence the so-called stigma in a clinical setting and its interaction with the physical immune response. Associated with the latter aspect, consideration about the perception of one’s status as pathological and vulnerable should be considered.

While most medical researchers choose to overlook, downplay, or bracket these debates, framing body weight gain only as a medical condition, the present research addresses a dialogue between medical science and the sociology of medicine to assess the role of social, environmental, and lifestyle factors as comorbidities of obesity and infectious diseases. These factors contribute not only to the construction of clinical labeling and stigmatization of obesity, but also increase the emergence of comorbidity between an important social problem, quality of life, patients) and patients’ course of treatment and rehabilitation.

Head UO: Francesca Romana Lenzi
PI: Annamaria Colao (University of Naples Federico II)