Healthytalk8 OVER VIEW
Contents
Obesity or overweight person is more prone to various diseases, compared to less weight, and healthy weight, which even cause death.
According to a report in 2020, about more than 2 billion adults (39% of the adult global population) were overweight.
2015-16 national nutrition monitoring bureau report says, about 44% of urban women are either overweight or obese.
But studies say girls are thinner than boys but upon reaching adulthood more women were found to be obese or overweight compared to men.
Do you know – Obesity and overweight have some basic differences.
Obesity is a situation, where a person receives an alarm that his health is now in danger or that health is to get more disease. it is an extreme situation.
On the other hand, being overweight is a that situation, where a person can rectify it.
Learn More – Obesity, And Pregnancy, Is Any Relation B/W Them, Risk
Reasons
According to a WHO report, Asian nations like India and China have seen a more than 25% increase in overweight (BMI 25-29.9 Kg m-2) (1).
And obesity (BMI ≥ 30 kg m−2) among adult males in the past few years, which slowly becoming a worldwide epidemic.
Many reasons cause obesity, which also increases the risk of obesity are:
Genes
Genes contain our DNA (it contain all the information necessary to build and maintain a body), if genes don’t work properly can cause diseases.
Some studies suggest that genes also play an important role in it, and also have found that BMI is 25–40% heritable (2).
Genetic factors that influence the expression of these genes play a large role in the development of obesity in children, and young adults (3).
Gender also plays a role in obesity, women (BMI ≥35 kg/m2) have been found to be more prone to obesity than men (4).
Research has shown a relationship between certain foods and obesity is shedding more light on the interaction between diet, genes, and obesity.
Genetics can directly cause obesity in specific disorders such as Bardet-Biedl syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome (5)
However, some people who carry these “obesity genes” do not become overweight, due to being more involved in healthy lifestyles, that interact with genes (6).
Too much sleep
A study showed women who slept 5 hours or less, compared to women who slept 7 hours a night were 15% more likely to become obese (7).
However, some studies suggest a link between short sleeping and obesity, while others show no connection.
Night-time levels of ghrelin (increased ghrelin levels lead to decrease physical activity) are increased in obese patients (8).
But one study showed treatment with continuous positive airway pressure can decrease the ghrelin level in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.
Unhealthy food
This is one of the main reasons for obesity because unhealthy food or poor diet habits contains lots of sugar, calories, high fat, which causes many diseases.
Due to poor diet, Obese kids or adults also may feel conscious about their self-image and might be teased or feel bad about themselves.
Studies have examined the relationship between sugar consumption and weight gain and it has been found to be this factor for putting on excess weight.
Unhealthy food such as:
- Red meat
- Sugary drinks
- Snack foods include foods such as chips, baked goods, and candy
- Processed food
- Fried food
In the 21 century, the trend of unhealthy food has increased significantly, due to which the risk of obesity also increases in people.
However, it is not necessary that you become fat by eating unhealthy food, there are many people who remain thin even after eating junk food.
Too low physical activity or no movement
A low level of physical activity not only leads to obesity but also contributes to muscle soreness, heart diseases, back pain, type II diabetes, etc.
No physical activity throughout the day, with no healthy diet, can highly increase the risk of overweight.
A study indicates overweight and obesity were significantly associated with poorer functional movement in children (9)
Researchers examining national health survey results from 1988 to 2010, found huge increases in obesity and inactivity, but not in the number of calories intake (10).
But a healthy diet with enrolling in physical activity can mitigate the obesity risk.
Diabetes
Research suggests that obese people are up to 80-85% times more likely to risk developing type II diabetes than those with a BMI of less than 22 (11).
Some research on body mass index has a strong relationship to diabetes and insulin resistance (12).
However, research does not fully understand the link between diabetes and obesity, but in the future, there will be strong evidence of this too.
Learn More – Natural Ways To Prevent Pre-Diabetes, And Diabetes
Medicines intake
Certain medicines can lead to diabetes, such as thiazide diuretic which dosage which can associate with the risk of developing diabetes.
The same evidence shows that thiazides combined with beta-blockers may increase the risk of diabetes than either drug alone (13)
Long-term medicine intake may interact with your hormone causes side effects such as headache, high sugar level, overweight, etc.
Drugs that induce diabetes include:
- Beta-blockers
- Thiazide diuretics
- Sulfonylureas
- Tricyclic Antidepressants drugs (13)
Overweight effect on the body
There is much evidence proof shown that obese effect on the body includes – cancers, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, stroke, coronary Artery Disease.
Also, Heart Failure, asthma, chronic back pain, osteoarthritis, pulmonary embolism, gallbladder disease, even death is seen in extreme cases (14), (15).
Effect on mental health
Some mental disorders can arise from discrimination caused by obesity like low self-esteem, mood disorder, quality of life effect, communication problems, etc (16) (17).
Some studies have indicated that obesity in both men and women enhances the chance of low sexual health, which is a sign of poor mental health (18).
Check Out – Music Can Treat Mental and Physical illness
Diabetes
When our blood sugar level reaches a high level we get to see a lot of complications inside our body.
Obesity can highly enhance the risk of type II diabetes. research showed that obesity was the major risk factor for diabetes during a 14-year follow-up.
During research where the participants were women, shown, women with a 5 to 7.9 kg weight gain, the relative risk for diabetes was 1.9.
And for those with an 8 to 10.9 kg weight gain, the relative risk was 2.7 (19).
Health Technology Assessment that examined the effect of weight loss in diabetic patients showed a significant improvement in the risk of developing diabetes (20).
Compare to men, women are more prone to increase body mass, which also increases the risk of developing type II diabetes (21).
Diabetes may attract other diseases such as heart diseases, stroke, and covid -19.
Impact on spiritual health
Some other studies have shown a relationship b/w emotional eating and spiritual well-being showed that lower levels of spiritual well-being (22).
Heart attack
This is one of the most common medical issues is due to obesity because fat can block your arteries (carries blood to the heart) causes a heart attack.
Also, high blood pressure is also a common cause of heart attack, and obese individuals are more prone to the risk of developing this.
In 2016, India reported 63% of the total deaths due to (Non-communicable diseases), of which 27% were due to (cardiovascular disease).
Framingham Heart Study showed that obesity increases the risk of irregular heartbeat. Among 5282 participants (of whom 55% were women) (23).
Learn More – Yoga For Healthy Heart | Food To Eat And Avoid.
Low bone Density
Being overweight may enhance the risk of getting osteoarthritis by putting extra pressure on joints and cartilage (24)
Osteoarthritis is common joint pain or long-lasting health problem that causes pain, swelling, and reduced motion in your joints.
Also induces bone loss and increases the risk of fracture in older people, and after 30 bone density Starts decreasing.
There is also evidence that the higher adiposity in obesity is associated with a lower rate of bone formation (25)
Difficulty in breathing
Of course, extra fat on the chest or neck can make a person have difficulty in breathing, which can affect many situations like during sleep, while walking or jogging, etc.
If you feel discomfort during physical activities, so try to lose weight with exercises, if not happen something, then talk to your doctor.
Check Out – Breathing Exercises To Increase Lung Capacity
Low testosterone level
There are lots of evidence proof, which says obesity is one of the main reason for low testosterone level, which also affects female hormones (26).
The fact that obese men have lower testosterone compared to lean men has been recognized for more than 30 years.
But low testosterone can occur due to other many reasons such as:
- Drinking excessive alcohol, or tobacco
- Lack of sleeping
- Lack of enough protein, and vitamins cause low T hormone at a young age.
- Using illegal drugs
- Being overweight, and being underweight according to your height, and age.
- Stress, which directly affect the immune system and testosterone
- Injury
- Diseases like liver disease, cancer, metabolic disorder.
- Consuming medicine for a very long time
Clinical studies suggest that the treatment of obese men with aromatase inhibitors (a medicine) can promote testosterone levels and restore fertility.
More studies show that low testosterone levels can increase by both weight loss as well as testosterone therapy, which can potentially break this cycle.
Other effect of obesity on health
- Decrease quality of life
- Leads to cancer
- Cardiovascular Disease
BOTTOM LINE
Obesity can highly enhance the risk of type II diabetes. and losing weight can reduce the chance of diabetes.
A person with overweight can open door to many diseases like cancer, less chance of being pregnant, less enhancement in physical activities, feeling shame.
