Health: Obesity - The American Epidemic

Obesity - The American Epidemic

Written by Shelley Hitz

Obesity – What is it? Obesity is a disease that affects approximately 60 million people in repparttar

United States, where women are especially affected. Over one-third of women between repparttar 114492

ages of 20 and 74 are obese, repparttar 114493

majority of them being African American or Mexican American. With more and more pre-packaged food and less and less activity, repparttar 114494

number of obese people in America has steadily increased since repparttar 114495

1960’s. But what is obesity? Many people think obesity means that a person is overweight, but that’s not exactly true. An overweight person has a surplus amount of weight that includes muscle, bone, fat, and water. An obese person has a surplus of body fat. Most health professionals concur that a man is obese if he has over 25 percent body fat, and a woman is obese if she has over 30 percent. Women physiologically have more body fat than men, so that why there’s a difference in percentage. It is difficult to determine repparttar 114496

exact percentage of body fat a person has, but estimates can be made in a number of ways. First, using a tweezer-like tool called a caliper, you can measure repparttar 114497

thickness of skin folds on different points of your body and compare repparttar 114498

results with standardized numbers. You can also use a small device that sends a harmless electrical current through your body and measures your body fat percentage. The most commonly used method to determine if a person is obese is to look at his/her Body Mass Index (BMI). A person with a BMI over 30 is considered to be obese, and a BMI over 40 is considered to be severely obese. It’s important to remember though that BMI could be misleading in pregnant or lactating women and in muscular individuals. There are some free tools to find your body fat percentage at http://www.abs-exercise-advice.com/body-fat-calculator.html.

Understand the Science of Obesity And You're On Your Way

Written by Wan Ibrahim

Many people think obesity means that a person is overweight, but that's not exactly true. An overweight person has a surplus amount of weight that includes muscle, bone, fat and water. An obese person has a surplus of body fat. Body Mass Index (BMI) is commonly used to determine if a person is obese or not. A person with a BMI over 30 is considered to be obese, and a BMI over 40 is considered to be severely obese.

Factors such as poor diet, lack of physical activity, genetics and certain medical disorders cause obesity, but it can be conquered.

Eating Disorder

Obesity itself is not an eating disorder, but people who are obese or who fear becoming obese may develop one. There are three type of eating disorder:-

Binge eating - binge eaters eat uncontrollably and quickly eating an unusually large amount of food at one sitting. They eat mostly sugar and fat. As a result, they may lack certain vitamins and nutrients.

Bulimia nervosa - bulimics binge eat, usually in secret, then purge to get rid of repparttar calories just eaten. They may also exercise intensely for long periods of time to burn off repparttar 114491 extra calories, or they may go for long periods of time without eating.

Anorexia nervosa - anorexics literally starve themselves due to an intense fear of being fat. Their bodies are severely depleted of nutrients. As a result, they develop muscular atrophy, dehydration, low blood pressure and organ damage to name a few. Because anorexia is so life threatening, repparttar 114492 first stage of treatment is getting body weight back to normal. Treatments for eating disorder include therapy and medications.

Fat & Cholesterol

For years we heard that a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet would keep us healthy and help us lose weight. And many of us jumped on repparttar 114493 bandwagon, eliminating fat and high-cholesterol foods from our diets. Well, unfortunately,we were doing it all wrong.

Instead of eliminating fat completely, we should have been eliminating repparttar 114494 "bad fats," repparttar 114495 fats associated with obesity and heart disease and eating repparttar 114496 "good fats," repparttar 114497 fats that actually help improve blood cholesterol levels.

Dietary Treatments

Americans spends millions of dollars each year on diet books,products, and weight-loss plans. But, why aren't they working? Because people are doing repparttar 114498 wrong things! These popular diets often offer promises of quick weight-loss with no hunger, and repparttar 114499 majority of those dieters who do succeed end up gaining repparttar 114500 weight back within a year.

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