Obesity

Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health.

The condition of being obese; increased body weight caused by excessive accumulation of fat.

Body mass index (BMI) is a simple index of weight-for-height that is commonly used to classify overweight and obesity in adults. It is defined as a person's weight in kilograms divided by the square of his height in meters (kg/m 2 ).

The WHO definition is:

• a BMI greater than or equal to 25 is overweight
• a BMI greater than or equal to 30 is obesity.

The fundamental cause of obesity and overweight is an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended. Globally, there has been:

• an increased intake of energy-dense foods that are high in fat, salt and sugars but low in vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients; and
• a decrease in physical activity due to the increasingly sedentary nature of many forms of work, changing modes of transportation, and increasing urbanization.

Changes in dietary and physical activity patterns are often the result of environmental and societal changes associated with development and lack of supportive policies in sectors such as health, agriculture, transport, urban planning, environment, food processing, distribution, marketing and education.

Causes of Obesity:

Few important reasons of obesity are as follows :

1.    Family History

The genes you have inherited from your parents have strong effects on one's weight. If parents are enduring from obesity , than their children's have more chances to become obese. Genes support obesity, eating habits or physical activities of parents and children's are mostly same, children's copied the habits of their parents .Obesity becomes family problem for most of the families.

2.    Physical Activities

• People spent hours in front of TV, computer or amount of leisure increased in their lives.

• Mostly job status is related to continuous sitting in office and using computer or other new technology.

• Travelling through cars and keep away from walking shows calories intake is greater than calories burn causes overweight.

3.    Age

As age increases, metabolic rate decreases. Therefore, it is required to take lesser food because when a person has lesser metabolic rate and he eats too much than result is overweight.

4.    Psychological Factors

Psychological factors like depression and anxiety causes overeating in some cases, by taking food they feel better, some takes drinks, some starts smoking to control their nerves all these situation cause weight gain. Sometimes peoples eat more because there is nothing to do without eating.

5.    Lack of sleep

Peoples who sleep less continuously facing problem of obesity .Daily sleep of 7 to 8 hours causes less weight gain, as compared to sleep lesser than this causes serious problems of obesity.

6.    Medicine

Use of certain medicines causes serious problem of obesity for examples medicines used for antidepressant, after seizures results obesity.

Common health consequences of overweight and obesity.

Raised BMI is a major risk factor for noncommunicable diseases such as:

• cardiovascular diseases (mainly heart disease and stroke), which were the leading cause of death in 2008;
• diabetes;
• musculoskeletal disorders (especially osteoarthritis - a highly disabling degenerative disease of the joints);
• some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon).

The risk for these noncommunicable diseases increases, with the increase in BMI.

Childhood obesity is associated with a higher chance of obesity, premature death and disability in adulthood. But in addition to increased future risks, obese children experience breathing difficulties, increased risk of fractures, hypertension, early markers of cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance and psychological effects.

Overweight and obesity, as well as their related noncommunicable diseases, are largely preventable. Supportive environments and communities are fundamental in shaping people's choices, making the healthier choice of foods and regular physical activity the easiest choice, and therefore preventing obesity.

Reducing overweight and obesity:

At the individual level, people can:

• limit energy intake from total fats;
• increase consumption of fruit and vegetables, as well as legumes, whole grains and nuts;
• limit the intake of sugars;
• engage in regular physical activity;
• achieve energy balance and a healthy weight.
• By consuming natural health drink like C-Slim.

Social Responsibility to control obesity.

Individual responsibility can only have its full effect where people have access to a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, at the societal level it is important to:

• support individuals in following the recommendations above, through sustained political commitment and the collaboration of many public and private stakeholders;
• make regular physical activity and healthier dietary patterns affordable and easily accessible too all - especially the poorest individuals.