Redefining Obesity in Veterinary Medicine: Making the Case for “Clinical Obesity”

"Clinical obesity" describes a dog or cat with excess adiposity plus clinical signs or a concurrent obesity-associated disease—a compromised patient who needs intervention, not a label assigned from a body condition chart alone. Here's the evidence-based, Lancet-aligned case for adopting the term in veterinary medicine, and for separating these patients from those who are apparently healthy but still at risk.