How can obesity impact a person health?

The problem of obesity is so alarming that several millions of USD is being spent on researches on the best way people can avoid it with minimum effort. It is even more alarming when the number of children becoming obsessed is put into consideration.

Currently more than 1 billion adults are overweight - and at least 300 million of them are clinically obese. According to WHO, “childhood obesity is already epidemic in some areas and on the rise in others. An estimated 22 million children under five are estimated to be overweight worldwide. According to the US Surgeon General, in the USA the number of overweight children has doubled and the number of overweight adolescents has trebled since 1980. The prevalence of obese children aged 6-to-11 years has more than doubled since the 1960s. Obesity prevalence in youths aged 12-17 has increased dramatically from 5% to 13% in boys and from 5% to 9% in girls between 1966-70 and 1988-91 in the USA. The problem is global and increasingly extends into the developing world; for example, in Thailand the prevalence of obesity in 5-to-12 year olds children rose from12.2% to 15-6% in just two years”.

The reason why this is so undesirable is because, obesity is the root cause of over 40 different illnesses and efforts to prevent it are not misplaced. Obesity can impact our health by increasing the risk of cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and digestive system diseases to name a few. The next few paragraphs look at some of the ways obesity negatively impacts on our health.

Blount's disease- Obesity is a known cause of Blount’s Disease which usually involves the lower extremities deformity mainly due to over bearing of body weight especially in bones that are still undergoing growth. However, this is one of the very minor problems of obesity.

Arthritis- Excessive weight bearing on the knee and ankle joints is a major cause of the wear and tear that occurs in joints. Any treatment of arthritis that fails to emphasis weight loss is usually an exercise in futility.

Pseudotumor cerebri- This is very rare and occurs in both teenagers and adults. It is characterized by increased intracranial pressure leading to severe headaches, vomiting and blurring of vision.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) - Obesity predisposes girls to development of cysts on the ovaries and they tend to miss their period. The hormonal changes in these kinds of people may lead to infertility. The cysts cause increase testosterone secretions which in many cases leads to hisuitism (increase hair growth in females- e.g. beards), worsening acne, and male-type baldness.

Diabetes- Obesity is the major cause of Type II or Non-insulin dependent Diabetes Mellitus also known as adult diabetes. It is common in people from 40 years of age. When there is excess body fat, insulin sensitivity of the cells is impaired and less glucose is taken up by the body cells. This causes glucose accumulation in the blood and consequently diabetes. Other problems of obesity are slipped capital femoral epiphyses, asthma, sleep apnea, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, gallstones formation, fatty liver, depression with low self esteem. Staying fit can sure avoid all of these problems and it is surely the way to go

What is obesity?

"Obesity is considered based on the weight of a person compared to the height and has become a very important parameter of determining the level of fitness in people."

An internationally accepted index used by experts to determine who is and who is not obese is called the Body Mass Index (BMI). The BMI accepted as normal, ranges between 18 and 28, and any one above the upper limit is classified as an obese person. The more obese a person is, the more likely he or she is to develop health problems.

Further grading considers the severity of obesity by classifying obesity into mild, morbid and malignant obesity. Mild obesity involving a body mass index (BMI 30+) causes less morbidity than morbid obesity (BMI 40+) or malignant obesity (BMI 50+). Malignant obesity is the most dangerous and these people are very prone to heart attacks. For example, someone who is 40 percent overweight is has a two-fold chance of dying a premature death than the other person whose BMI is within normal range. So it is an issue of life and death we are talking about.

So to simply put it, obesity is excessive body fat.

How do we calculate our BMI?

Everyone needs to be able to calculate his/her BMI in order to know when to seek medical advice. It can be calculated using weight in kg and height in meters or weight in pounds and height in inches.

The easiest way to find out your BMI is to use a BMI table for adults. There is also a handy BMI calculator at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute's website. As stated before, to find your BMI, you need to know your height and your weight.

The formula is: BMI = Weight (kg)/ {Height}2 (m)

You can also take your weight in pounds, divide that number by your height in inches squared, and multiply the result by 703 to get your BMI.

That is BMI= [Weight (Ibs)/{Height}(inches)] *730

If your BMI is 25-29.9, you are in the "overweight" category and not yet obese but being at the upper limit of normal is a sign you are slowly becoming obese. There are three classes of obesity:

• Class I obesity — BMI of 30-34.9
• Class II obesity— of 35-39.9
• Class III obesity— of 40 and higher

Other classifications are Mild, Morbid and Malignant. Whatever classification you use, a BMI of 30 and above is unhealthy and that increases your weight related health risk.

Obesity Risk

Obesity therefore predisposes you to Heart diseases, stroke, diabetes, cancer of the gallbladder; breast, uterus, cervix, and ovaries (for women) and cancer of the colon; rectum, and prostate (for men). Gallstones, osteoarthritis, gout, apnea, high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, pregnancy related problems, irregular menstrual cycles and infertility, psychological and social effects etc. To avoid these arrays of health risks, we must learn to eat just the amount of food the body needs. Eating too much and a sedentary lifestyle is a major culprit causing obesity.

What is the best appetite suppressant?

“What's the best appetite suppressant? I‘ve tried both drug based and herbal but I didn’t loss any weight. I am not sure what to do, but I guess there is an answer”. So many young people today sound like the lady I quoted here.

Now what are the things you are looking for in an appetite suppressant considering the fact that you may have to be on them for as long as possible, in many cases up to 12 months. You know that for sustained effect especially if you desire drastic weight loss the suppressants must be used for sustained periods. I know a lot of ladies want to do this as their wedding approaches and guys want to do this as summer crawls near looking to show off some six packs.

If you want to suppress your appetite in a healthy and safe way, stick to high-fiber foods and high water consumption. These two help to keep your stomach filled most of the time and so suppresses your appetite. The feeling of hunger actually emanates form the hunger pangs in an empty stomach and get sent to the brain where it is interpreted as hunger. So to suppress this, it is as simple as keeping the stomach filled most of the time.

However, you need to find a way of doing so without consuming excessive amount of calories. Two of the best high fiber anti suppressants available in the market include Proactol and Acai berries & its products.

These are the best appetite suppressants! We are meant to eat lots of high-fiber fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and we also function best when we consume a large amount of water to aid digestion and circulation.

Acai berries for example, are fruits from Brazil and apart from the high anti-oxidant contents are very rich in fiber. So it tends to expand in the stomach when eaten causing fast satisfaction when eating.

Another herbal appetite suppressant is Lipobind. It is a certified medical device product. It works with the same principle of acai berries. It controls food cravings by causing what you have eaten to expand in your stomach making you feel full and satisfied.

You may also want to try out Hoodia. Hoodia is said to work well. They come usually in combination with L-carnitine. For further information on the products I have mentioned here please Google the product word. There are tones of information out there for your use.

Another effective herbal supplement that is in popular use today is 5-HTP. It increases serotonin secretion in the brain; this is responsible for elevating your mood and also decreases your appetite for food.

When using these appetite suppressants, you should be careful that you do not suppress your appetite too much that you become malnourished due to inadequate food intake.

Above all these, you can still loss weight naturally by staying on a strict diet and exercising regularly without having to spend so much on fat binders or appetite suppressants and if you must use any form of medication, always consult your doctor.

What is the definition of diet?

A diet comprises those foods that one lives on from day to day. Generally, humans are either omnivores or vegetarians. Omnivores are people whose diets consist of plant and animal food sources; whereas, vegetarians live on vegetables and fruits only.

The New Webster’s Dictionary of English Language defines diet as; the food and drink normally taken by an individual or a group or a prescribed course of what is to be eaten and what is not. This definition takes into account the fact that what you drink e.g. Milk, water, beer, whisky etc is part of your diet.

There is a saying that, you are what you eat, meaning that your diet can go a long way to predict what you will become in future considering that some diets confers longevity and some kill you fast.

Imagine a diet of ice creams and chocolates, or beer, whisky and beef etc.

Problems of Dieting

Diets come with some problems especially bad diets. When a person becomes addicted to a particular unhealthy diet, there is predisposition to several diseases simply because of the diet. The subject of healthy dieting is now a very popular one across the globe and more and more people are realizing the need to develop a well thought out diet deemed fit for themselves. High fat diet may cause stroke, hypertension, coronary heart disease, diabetes, obesity and low self esteem.

Low Protein diet results in malnourishment and depressed immune system, anemia (this is common in vegetarians), and in children kwashikor, a form of protein energy malnutrition.

Dietary Supplement

It is becoming more difficult for one to actually consume all the nutrients needed for proper functioning of the body from food alone and as such it is common to see people who eat less because of their diet but try to supplement with pills.

Some of the diet pills are to induce anorexia and help you reduce the number of times you eat as well as the amount of food per day. In selecting these supplements, a thorough research is necessary as they are too many dietary pills and fat binders out there that fail to achieve what they promise.

Dieting is an important aspect of healthy living and everyone needs to be on one form of diet or the other. Yours may have been prompted by an illness, or maybe you want to loss weight, you are trying to maintain weight loss or you do not just want to grow fat. Before any decision is taken on what kind of diet you should be on, your doctors advice must be sort-only he is in the position to advice you appropriately.

Dieting will only make sense when we decide on it and stick to it as well. It is very important that people have control over the things they eat. Diet is the biggest single determinant of whether or not we will have good health. It affects health more than any other thing one can thing of.

Why am I not losing weight?

Have you found yourself asking this question after 6 months or 1 year of weight loss program? Maybe you have been dieting for a year now and you are probably also exercising, yet you don’t seem to be making any progress and you are worried. So you are now asking, why?

Some people actually loss the weight, maybe in their first 6 months but later gain it back. If you're troubled by this it is most likely that you have been digressing from you plan. You're not alone in this if you must know there are about 70% of the populations who suffer this problem.

First check out with your doctor to make sure you are not suffering type 2 diabetes mellitus. But it could also be that you are suffering the same problem every body out there who is trying to loss weight is suffering. They fail to seek expert advice. Or they have but are not adhering strictly to what was prescribed. The thing is that, we know fat binders work, but not every fat binder out there works as expected or promised. You can not afford to exercises just every now and then and expect that because you are on a diet, you should loss weight. It doesn’t just work that way. There has to be a well thought of diet plan as well as exercise plan.

Something I would suggest is maybe trying a particular kind of meal works for you, it makes sense to keep going with that food combined with fruits and vegetables. You can not keep trying different regimen forever; you need to stick to things that work. Use only tested diet plans.

If you have been using say, 1% milk that contains a very low amount of fat, then start using skim milk. You might want to incorporate lean protein like fish or chicken. You can also get good proteins from things like beans (some have more/better protein than others) or nuts.


Another secret is to stay away from snack bars. Don’t buy and don’t have it at home. Even if it belongs to someone else, the kid for example because, sometimes you will need a cooperative family to succeed in losing weight. The allure of these snacks is difficult to avoid sometimes. However, if you consider that you health’s worth more than a couple of snacks, it should serve as enough motivation for you to want to stay alive.

I am out lining some of these steps because I believe your problem is in either your wrong diet plan or lack of consistency-maybe ignorance too. So you should include some weight lifting exercises into your routine. This weight does not have to be heavy- Cardiovascular exercise is great and plays an important role in reaching your goal weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, however, once you stop the exercise you stop burning calories as well. With this you not just burn calories during exercises but continue even after the exercise.

Why fitness is important??

Why is Health Related Fitness important? Knowing the importance of anything we do will help to keep us focused. Practically every news or story online or offline you see mentions fitness, but not all of them explain why health related fitness is important. Our body is an invaluable asset that stays with us day and night throughout and for as long as we live. It is very important that we treat it well and keep it physically fit.

The general attitude of people towards fitness has changed and over the past few years you and I are now much more concerned and aware of the need to live positively. We now recognize the importance of physical fitness than ever before. We are encouraged to adopt a 'positive attitude' to our health by many talk shows online forums and fitness websites through better care of our bodies and minds.

The Importance of Fitness

Fitness may just be the saving grace when you find yourself in a life threatening situation. Note that I expect you to be a martial artist, but you will need to really be fit to run for your dear life and not gas out after just 100 meters.

Self Esteem- A person who is fit tend to have confidence in public places and amongst peers. Not just because they look god to everyone around but because of the inner comfort and feel-good disposition.

The problem of coronary heart diseases, diabetes, hypertension, cancers are all conditions that can be avoided if you take out time to make sure that your body is fit. Exercises prevent a lot of problems.

Your body can better handle dangerous chemicals like free radicals if we exercise more often. Your heart muscles grow thicker and pump more blood per minute, nutrient absorption is at optimal levels, bones grow bigger and healing process occurs faster.

Positive health is all that it takes to maintain a minimum level of health and fitness to keep your body looking and feeling good and at optimum functional state, as well as maintaining a level of physical fitness.

Health and fitness is determined by what we eat, how we live our lives. In order words, it is determined by our life style. The kind of daily activities we love to get involved in, the type of food we love to eat, the number of times we eat and the amount of food we eat and physical exercise.

Keeping fit is about how we as individuals choose to live our lives and the levels of fitness we aspire to. We all need a certain amount of the right type of exercise to keep us healthy, regardless of our lifestyle, age or physical ability.

Maintaining a good level of physical fitness will give you a feeling of better health through increased energy and vitality, it is a happy feeling that results in even greater happiness.

Fitness keeps you in the right frame of mind. There is increase metal sharpness and concentration all resulting from increase blood circulation in the brain achieved by proper dieting and physical exercises. Fitness is something we should all desire.

10 Tips To Lose Weight For Your Honeymoon

Everyone wants their wedding and honeymoon to be wonderful life experiences, with the bride and groom looking and feeling their absolute best. While some may set their weight loss goals with only their wedding day in mind, others will be completely focused on dropping the weight for the honeymoon. Honeymoon weight loss is most likely a more intimate type of weight loss expectation, as the goal is usually to have your body appear a certain way for your spouse. Some may simply want to look as sexy as possible, or almost picture perfect. While you should always set realistic weight loss goals, these top 10 tips can help you to lose the weight:

1. Make night time eating a "no-no". When you eat late at night, you are taking in calories, but not doing anything to burn them off. This is not good, as frequently eating late is a big contributor to obesity.

2. Make eating breakfast a necessity. Starting your day with a healthy breakfast of lean protein, low-fat carbohydrates, and fruit or vegetables is a key to daily weight loss success. Eating breakfast helps your brain to work better so that you are more productive, helps your body to metabolize your food more efficiently which allows for more calories to be burned, and gives you more energy to do more throughout your day.

3. Don't stop eating carbohydrates. Whole grains are an essential part of a healthy diet and are the much needed carbohydrates that our bodies convert into energy. Instead of high fat, low fiber choices such as white bread and fat-laden cakes, select healthier low-fat carbohydrates such as fortified cereals.

4. Don't leave off exercise. Exercise is a "must do" to achieve weight loss success. When you exercise, your body burns the fat from the foods that you eat more efficiently and also helps in so many other ways, including with your heart and brain. Exercise also has the added benefit of allowing for more targeted workouts to tone and sculpt those problem areas that you want to work on before your wedding and honeymoon.

5. Don't spend a lot of time around food. Unless you work in the food industry, limit the amount of time that you spend looking at or around food. Part of any successful honeymoon weight loss plan is to stay focused on your goal. Being around lots of food can offset you and cause you more anguish and uncertainty about your ability to lose the weight.

6. Enjoy more healthy snacks. Many of us think of weight loss as something that will deprive us of good munchies. This is not true. In fact, the opposite is true. When you eat more healthy snacks, more frequently, in smaller portions, your body will actually work better by speeding up your metabolism and causing you to burn more calories more quickly.

7. Stay hydrated. Dehydration can cause you to want to eat more and drink lots of high calorie beverages. Drink low-calorie, replenishing drinks that can help your body stay refreshed and well-hydrated.

8. Get a nutritional makeover. Make over your mind about the purpose and use of food, and get a better understand of its use in our lives. Eat for health, look for vitamins and nutrients in your food, and don't deprive yourself of things that you like. Balance it all out and you will enjoy a healthier way of eating for years to come.

9. Lose for the long-term. Don't get too caught up in taking off the weight just for one night. That is sure to leave you feeling empty once that night is over, and may cause you to quickly abandon your new healthier lifestyle. This will actually cause you to gain weight faster.

10. Stay positive. Believe that you can lose the weight. You have to make up in your mind that you are 100% capable of making your honeymoon weight loss goal a reality. Ignore anything to the contrary.

Weddings are wonderful things. Honeymoons can be even more phenomenal. The way that you approach your special day and night will make the all the difference in the world. Being confident in who you are and making the most of this precious time can give you a satisfaction that can last a lifetime.