How obesity can affect your life

Without a doubt, obesity results in dramatic negative effects on physique, social acceptance, emotions and to top them all, health of the person concerned. A lot of morbidly obese people are more traumatized by their "weighty" problem than they care to admit.

1)Physical image: Nowadays body image is crucial to one's social standings be it in schools or workplaces. People are so influenced by "wafer thin" models that the concept "Thin is beautiful, fat is ugly" has been overemphasized. Many obese people are ashamed or embarrassed of their bulky stature.

2)Social withdrawal: Because obese people are embarrassed of their physique, they tend to withdraw themselves from the social crowd. Who can blame them ? From time to time, we hear reports of "big people" being bullied, teased and even spat on by "small people". They have been called all sorts of names and shunned like lepers especially in public transport (plane for example). It's a fact- society does not treat them well. As an educated society, we should be more understanding and caring towards this group of people. A lot of them are fat, not because they are greedy, not because they don't do exercise but because they have genetic issues or medical problems.

3)Negative emotions: For reason society often does not accept them well, obese people tend to keep to themselves, all the time undergoing hefty stress/depression which can ultimately lead to self-harm. It's not surprising to hear some of them saying they contemplated suicide at some stage of their life. Because of their low self-esteem, they often have not much confidence in their work or play resulting in less satisfactory performance which again leads to depression.

4)Health concerns: We are all aware of the so-called morbidities of obesity- cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes type 2, fatty liver, sleep apnoea, arthritis, infertility and depression. Each year, billions of dollars is spent treating these side effects of obesity

"Prevention is better than cure." To avoid being obese, we have to manage our weight well on a consistent level through healthy diets and regular exercises.For those who are overweight, there are lots of weight loss products and weight loss diets to help you.

Obesity-What are the causes?

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"Obesity is overeating, basically. It's how many calories you take in and how many you use. If you take in more than you use, you"re going to get fat. Once you"ve got fat cells, you"ve got them for life. You can skinny them down but they sit there like fly paper, waiting for a calorie to go past and pounce. That's why inside every fat person- even if you thin them down- there"s a little fat person trying to get fatter again." This is an extract from Dr. Nicholson, who pioneered obesity surgery 30 years ago.

It's really disheartening to see so many young children and adults as well carry so much excess weight struggling to walk along the streets, in the shopping malls, in the parks. It's like an epidermic. These people need all the help we can give. Nobody wants to be fat. Before we offer any help, let us look at the possible causes of obesity.

1)Genetic predisposition: Most health professionals agree that genetic predisposition does play a hand. Usually at least one of the parents is obese too.

2)Obesogenic environment: We live in an era where convenient and appetising meals are paramount. If we care to admit, a lot of us, especially the younger ones, choose taste over health. We are eating highly processed, low-nutrition foods rich in sugar, fat and salt that are sold by supermarkets and fast food chains. These relatively cheap, unhealthy food is further reinforced by blatant advertisiing on prime-time television slots. So it's no wonder Dr Reza Adib remarked "Genetics loads the gun...and environment pulls the trigger."

3)Lack of exercise: We are becoming so dependent on the cars that it's not uncommon to see people drive 500m to get the newspaper or something. Some just sit in front of the computers surfing the net or playing games whenever they are free. Some just sit in front of the TV munching whole bucketloads of chips. But of course, there are those that do some form of workouts. Thumbs up to you guys.

4) Poor diet: A lot of us eat what we like to eat not what is good for our health. This is understandable but healthy food doesn't have to taste bad. On the contrary, a lot of healthy food tastes really delicious if you put some effort into the preparations. We are lured by deceptive advertisments to consume unhealthy sugary, fatty food. Make your own intelligent judgement when you eat. Ask yourself "Is this good for me? Is this going to make me fat?Please remember, you eat to live rather than live to eat.
5) Comfort eating: Depression can lead to obesity when people undergo deep emotional stress. These people find comfort when they stuff great amount of food into their stomachs. Worst is, these foods are usually high calorie like chocolate, pastries, cakes etc.
6)Medical condition: Some medical conditions can put extra kilos to the sufferers. One good example is thyroid gland dysfunction which is said to play stacking on weight.