- More than 1 billion overweight adults in the entire world out of which 300 million adults are morbidly obese.
- US is the undisputed leader of Obesity in the world.
- Obesity and being overweight results in many health risks like cardiovascular disease, type2 diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, hypertension stroke and certain forms of cancer.
- The primary reasons for the onset of obesity are intake of energy and saturated fat rich foods with a sedentary life style and minimal physical activity.
- In UK according to the report published by Food Standards Agency and the Department of Health in Feb, 2004 around one fourth of the adult men and one third of the women are obese. The number of obese children below 5 years of age stands at a staggering high of 22 million.
- Obesity is measured with the help of BMI. It is measured as weight in kilograms divided by a person's height in meter square. A BMI of over 30 is counted as obese.
- Children of obese parents are twice as likely to become obese. Some people are built up genetically in such a way that they gain weight easily or find it harder to lose their excess pounds.
- According to the National Obesity Firm, UK, people who are obese are likely to have a lesser life span as compared to the people with normal weight. Obese people have a likely chance of living approximately 9 years lesser than the normal people.
- The obesity epidemic is not restricted only to the industrialized nations; this increase is even faster in the developing world as compared to the industrialized society.
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What should be done?
There should be efforts made in the direction of creating population based environment to promote the availability and accessibility of low fat food and high fibre food products and an environment of physical activity so that a healthy lifestyle becomes a habit for the people.
Healthy behavior should be promoted by encouraging, motivating and enabling individuals to lose weight by eating more fruits, vegetables, nuts and whole grains. People must be encouraged to engage in a moderate physical activity of at least 30 minutes. People should learn to cut on high fatty and sugary foods in their diets. People should also be made aware to switch on from saturated animal fats to unsaturated vegetable oil based fat.
Clinical programs must be run and staff trainings must be given to mount a clinical response to the existing burden of obesity and associated conditions to ensure effective support for those affected to lose weight or to avoid further weight gain. Obese people should not be ridiculed in the society as obesity can have far reaching psychological impact as well and if left unchecked can lead to even severe depression.
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