Impact of Obesity - Lesson 1
“Overweight & obesity have been designated as the second leading cause of preventable death in the United States.”
In current times, tasks which previously required manual intervention is no longer necessary. Technology is rapidly advancing and automation has decreased the need for intense physical work. We ride the bus or drive relatively short distances and highly processed foods with minimal nutritional qualities are extremely easy to access without the need of exerting much effort. For this reason, many people live relatively sedentary lifestyles. Obesity, hyperlipidemia and diabetes are prevalent. Obesity and overweight, in both children and adults, has become a global epidemic.
By now, I’m sure we’ve heard about the impact of obesity more times than we care to admit but what are we doing to fix this issue? Surveys show that industrialized countries as well as developing countries have a growing percentage of children and adults who are obese or overweight. Can obesity be said to be a learned behavior?
How prevalent is obesity? In the United States, roughly 38% of adults have obesity. In women, (40.4%) obesity is more common than men (35%), and rates have exceeded 35% prevalence in four states, 30% in 25 states, and 20% in all other states. One forecast estimates a 33% increase in obesity and a 130% increase in severe obesity (BMI > 40 kg/m2) by 2030.
38% of Adult Population
35% Men and 40.4% Women
What is Obesity?
According to National Strength and Conditioning Association
“Obesity is a complex multifactorial chronic disease that develops from an interaction of genetic, environmental, social, behavioral, metabolic, and possibly racial influences.”
Obesity can be defined as an amount of body fat higher than what is considered healthy for an individual’s weight.
The American Medical Association classified obesity as being a “multi-metabolic and hormonal disease state” that leads to unfavorable outcomes.” We know for certain obesity is associated with lower levels of productivity, decreased quality of life, and increased mortality. 32 People with obesity, as compared to those of a healthy weight, are at increased risk for many serious diseases and health conditions affecting multiple organ systems. 33–35 “Recent data provides strong evidence for a causal role of higher BMI and risk of type 2 diabetes and hypertension, and evidence that BMI increases risk of coronary heart disease.”36
By BruceBlaus – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44922550
The Cause:
A positive energy balance. In the simplest of terms this means, its’ caused by eating too much and exercising too little. Our obsession with food is cutting our lives short.
Let’s dissect! Consuming and storing more calories than what the body uses for physical demands or sustaining essential functions of life. Calories are potential energy stored in food which the body uses to sustain life and perform physical activity. Obesity or overweight can creep in very subtly. In a nutshell, a sedentary lifestyle or low levels of consistent physical activity appears to be the cause for a great percentage of adult overweight cases. There needs to be a balance! If you are accustomed to regularly exercising and suddenly stop, but continue consuming the same amount of calories as you were previously to your discontinuation of exercise, it is possible for you to become overweight by decreasing your activity level without consuming more calories everyday.
You can counter the effects of overweight by intervening with an exercise program and increased physical activity. It’s much easier to return to your normal healthy state if you are overweight by making minor adjustments to your lifestyle. Hint! Start exercising again!
Fat is not just a storage site for extra calories; fat stays active. Fat cells are consistently producing chemicals and hormones, more specifically known as adipokines. Consider this. On average, someones body fat percentage is sitting anywhere from 10-25%. Imagine how much of an impact an organ would have if it were 10-25% of your total body weight. Furthermore, imagine if this organ’s percentage surpassed 35%, that’s a lot of impact. Now imagine this thing releasing hormones & chemicals into your system. This would make it more powerful than any other hormone releasing glands in the body and this “organ” called fat doesn’t release hormones and chemicals which are beneficial to your health. By the time you’ve arrived at the stage of obesity, the fat cells in your body are releasing these adipokines at such an alarming rate it becomes an enormous challenge to reverse what has and is being done.
We know that obesity is a MULTIFACTORIAL chronic disease, therefore we cannot contribute obesity to a single factor without knowing the details of each individual, but for the sake of simplicity and understanding, here’s the cause. The cause of obesity is essentially due to having a decrease in physical activity and an increase in caloric intake. Once you’ve reached the state of obesity, your lifestyle and the harmful chemicals released into the body perpetuate the negative cycle.
Severity of obesity on your health (Physiological & Psychosocial):
Many tend to underestimate the extreme health risks associated with obesity. We need not make the assumption that obesity is a minor issue, as the negative effects can be long lasting and lead to premature death. This program is not meant to be used as a scare tactic. We simply present you with FACTUAL data that we hope will influence you to make more positive health and life decisions. Now let’s continue with the facts.
Obesity is associated with countless health and safety risks. Health risks include prediabetes mellitus, diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, depression, hypertension, high cholesterol, sleep apnea and respiratory problems, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, some cancers31 (endometrial, breast, colon, kidney, esophagus, gallbladder, pancreas, and liver), and metabolic syndrome. In addition to health risks, health care and disability costs associated with obesity are also increased. Individuals are not working as long as they could because of the premature disability associated with being obese. One study found that as BMI increases from 30 to 35, the probability of an STD claim increases 25% (from 3.6% to 4.5%) for those without hypertension, hyperlipidemia, or diabetes and 37% (4.9% to 6.7%) for those with one of these comorbidities. 12 We’ll get into the financial strain obesity causes in a few.
Obesity may be a risk factor for Musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders such as osteoarthritis, back pain, and increased difficulty with physical functioning, 37 and is a major cause of knee replacement surgery. 33 A recent study using 17 years of data from 38,214 university and health system employees reported a significant interaction between BMI and MSK injury risk. The effect of BMI was strongest for “low” MSK injury risk occupations, but the absolute MSK injury rates for “mid”/“high” MSK injury risk occupations remained larger. 38
The psychosocial burden related to obesity is significant. Decreased quality of life, increased depressive symptoms, and higher rates of mood disorders are linked to excess body weight. There’s no secret regarding the backlash individuals with obesity receive. They are often stigmatized and discriminated against in a wide range of social situations, including the workplace. Persons with obesity are hired less frequently than those of average body weight, receive lower salaries and less frequent promotions, and report less satisfaction with their employment than individuals of average body weight. 43
Obesity vs Overweight:
People who are obese have a significantly greater excess of weight, particularly adipose tissue mass, than those who are overweight. Additionally, the percentage of adipose tissue, as opposed to fat-free tissue, is higher in persons who are obese. This means that people who are obese have significantly increased their fat stores without a concomitant increase in muscle mass.
In general, persons who are obese are more likely to have a larger positive energy balance over a longer period of time than those who are overweight. Contribution to the positive energy balance is not only from a decrease of physical activity, but also from an increase in food consumption. Energy balance occurs when an individual is consuming as many calories as he or she expends, resulting in no change of body weight. A positive energy balance, or consuming more calories than are expended, will result in an increase in body weight. A negative energy balance, or the consumption of less calories than are expended, will result in a decrease in body weight.
Are you obese?
For the purpose of this discussion, overweight is defined as a BMI of 25 to 29.9 kg/m2 and obesity defined as a BMI ≥30 kg/m2. This definition is broken down into standard three classes of obesity—Class I Obesity (low risk) with a BMI of 30 to 34.9 kg/m2, Class II Obesity (moderate risk) with a BMI of 35 to 39.9 kg/m2, and Class III Obesity (high risk) with a BMI ≥40 kg/m2. 8
How to find out:
There are a few methods to identify your BMI. However, realistic methods you can utilize are formulas such as the one below and/or electronic devices designed for identifying your BMI and/or simply use web/mobile apps with the formulas already punched in. All you would need to do is fill in the designated fields.
BMI measures your body mass in relation to your structure.
Some people use height-weight tables. However, BMI is more accurate than the former mentioned.
Measuring abdominal fat:
Your pant’s size says more about your health than you may think. There is a positive correlation between the abdominal fat content and the waist circumference measurement. The waist-to-hip ratio is a valuable tool for assessing relative fat distribution and risk of disease. If you have more fat in the trunk, specifically abdominal fat, you are at increased risk for a variety of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.
What your BMI & Abdominal Measurements say about your health:
Once you’ve identified your BMI, use the table below to determine your disease* risk relative to your weight. Keep in mind your body composition, if you contain more lean muscle mass, it will likely categorize you at a higher BMI number. Your body composition may cause this reading to be inaccurate. This is why the abdominal measurements can be very helpful.
Fat distribution:
Which category do you fall into? Android obesity or Gynoid obesity.
What is android obesity? Identified as an (apple shaped body), when significant amounts of body fat accumulates at the trunk and abdominal areas. When there is presence of excess fat in the abdomen, out of proportion to total body fat, that acts as an independent predictor of disease risk for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and CVD.
What is gynoid obesity? It can be identified as a (pear shaped body), when significant amounts of body fat are deposited in the hip and thigh region. Gynoid obesity is not associated with as severe health risk as android obesity.
