More than 30% – nearly 2.1 billion people of the world’s population are either obese or overweight, a marked crossing its rising limit of obesity rates globally since last three decades. This is leading to millions of health problems and premature deaths.
According to the ‘World Health Organization (WHO),’ the main reason for obesity is energy imbalance, it occurs when our calorie intake exceeds our calorie depletion. But there are some other reasons too that are responsible for obesity. Today, obesity is not just a problem of “gaining weight”, it is now considered as a serious health problem in the United States, according to a new research, the most comprehensive study executed on this topic.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Obesity is not just a weight problem; it can affect a person’s physical, metabolic and psychological health badly”.
This equates to one-fifth of world’s population will be obese by 2025 because of urbanization, poor diets, and reduced physical activity.
Why is Obesity rising at Alarming Rates?
Healthy foods cost more and unhealthy foods often cost less. Generally, people with less income, minority caste, and rural areas do not have enough resources or ready access to outlets that sell healthy affordable foods like leafy green vegetables and fruits.
Sugar is considered as one of the main factors of obesity. No doubt that eating sugar in large quantity leads to obesity. According to a recent study, 55% of adults take at least 1 sugary drink every day. Lack of physical activity also makes people obese. It is very important to include physical activity in our lifestyle. A new study has suggested the problem of obesity is not due to intake of excess calories or under-exercising, but it is also due to overeating at times.
Physical activities help people to keep active and also make them stay fit & healthy. The other vital role physical activity play in lowering the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, certain cancers, and osteoporosis.
Eating habit is the main factor which is involved in making people fat, like what we eat, how we eat and how we burn the calorie of a food that we ate? Some studies have also revealed that technology is one other reason behind obesity as it has made people sedentary. Today most of the people spend a major amount of their quality time in sitting front of a computer/laptop screen, using mobile or watching TV that has bound us to sit instead of moving around.
Kids are also getting affected with this kind of lifestyle. A recent study has stated that children between the age group of 8-18 years spend approx 7.5 hours each day in engaging themselves in front of entertainment media (like computers, TV, mobile phones, movies and video games etc.). Technology not only detracts our time that could be spent on physical activity but it also urges us strongly to eat meals and have snacks often that we see through tempting and mouth-watering advertisements.
Obesity and Health Consequences:
We need to understand that overweight or obesity is not just a weight problem, it is a disease in its own, and this disease can affect a person’s physical, metabolic and psychological health badly. Obesity also poses a risk to develop some other serious health issues. You should keep in mind, being overweight can have a major impact on your health and lifestyle both.
Having obese can lead you serious health consequences such as heart disease, Hypertension, stroke, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, Sleep apnea (stopping of breathing while asleep) and some types of cancers. Even these conditions can cause substantial disability or premature death. Carrying extra weight can also put extra pressure on your body’s main joints and limbs that can make a simple physical activity quite difficult. And sometimes this may lead to painful movements too. You can lose weight faster by increasing your levels of activities.
As per experts, obesity also causes psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, body dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, and low-quality life. This study has also stated that the quality of life of obese children is lower the children with cancer.
Today, Obesity is rising at alarming rate. Nowadays obese children and young people are facing the same health consequences as adults. It is very important that the children achieve a healthy weight as soon as possible. Generally, we are noticing children so obese that they are suffering from conditions that are usually associated with adults e.g. Type 2 Diabetes. Obesity has also been related with poor academic success, poor concentration levels and social exclusion in school.
Parents, siblings, or life partner of obese people are the best person who can help their loved ones to get out of obesity disease.
How to deal with this situation?
Following a healthy lifestyle can save us from becoming obese. Eating a balanced diet, doing timely workouts, timely BMI (body index mass) checkup, doing some extra physical activities etc can keep us away to become obese.
Marie
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