There is so much information about the harmful effects of overweight and obesity, but bad obesity statistics is steadily increasing. Knowing and preventing causes of obesity and overweight will help us to achieve a healthier lifestyle.
What is obesity? Obesity is not just an aesthetic issue. This is a disease state in which there is a 50 to 100% overrun of normal body weight. Then the body mass index is equal to 40 or more, which seriously affects the health and function of the body as a whole.
Main causes of obesity are assosiated to higher calories intake than those which are consumed by the body, over-eating and sedentary. However, there are some other factors and causes of overweight.
Factors and causes of obesity and overweight
- A lack of physical activity is in the list of common causes of obesity and overweight. Eating should be in accordance with the usual physical activity so as to provide the right amount of calories. Physical activity affects and reduces appetite and maintaining metabolism. All day at your desk, spending the evening on the couch watching TV, and wherever you go – you are always in the car. This is called a lack of physical exercises, which contributes to causing obesity and weight gain.
- Genetic factors are also a reason for bad obesity statistics. Obesity and overweight tend to run in families. Our chances of being obesity are greater if one or both of our parents are overweight. However, heredity does not mean doom. There are many cases where children do not tend to accumulate additional weight and can control their weight adequately.
- Psychological factors are among the most common causes of obesity and overweight. Many people eat in response to negative emotions as boredom, sadness, anger or others. Such excessive eating is characterized by taking huge amounts of foods and inability to control eating.
- Disease. Obesity develops the greatest extent because of metabolic problems such as reduced function of the thyroid gland, Cushing’s syndrome, polycystic ovarian syndrome, depression and other.
- Drugs – Some medicines also lead to obesity. This group includes steroids and antidepressants.
- Other causes of obesity and overweight are environment, smoking, age, lack of sleep
Important obesity statistics can be seen on the website of World Health Organization.
