Unfortunately, "Obesity in horses is often desirable to owners," said Nat Messer, DVM, Dipl. ABVP, an associate professor of equine medicine and surgery at the University of Missouri, at the 2006 AAEP Convention.

"There clearly exists a need for objective criteria by which horses might be ‘scored’ in terms of whole-body adiposity (such as the body mass index used in human medicine)," Johnson noted.

He added that a major goal of adiposity research focuses on identifying therapeutic strategies that effectively reduce the ratio of pro-inflammatory (inflammationcausing), insulin-desensitizing adipokines to anti-inflammatory, insulin-sensitizing adipokines.

Owners need to control obesity now by properly managing horses’ diets and increasing exercise levels