Obesity is consider to be an adverse medical condition where in the accumulated excess body fats has undesirable effects on health resulting in increased health problems and reduction in the life expectancy. A measurement called BMI – Body Mass Index is used to define Obesity. It takes the comparison of height and weight and defines an individual to be (pre-obese) when their Body Mass Index is between 25 kg/m2 and 30 kg/m2 and a person is said to be obese when the BMI value is greater than 30 kg/m2.
- BMI value ≥ 35 or 40 is severe obesity
- BMI value of ≥ 35 or 40–44.9 or 49.9 is morbid obesity
- BMI value of ≥ 45 or 50 is super obese
Being obese, chances of contracting various disease increases to a major extent particularly type 2 diabetes, heart diseases, certain types of cancer, osteoarthritis and having trouble in breathing while sleeping.
Obesity is majorly caused due to the amalgamation of genetic susceptibility, lack of physical health and dietary calories, although many cases has been observed caused mainly by endocrine disorders, genes, psychiatric illness or medications .There is no enough proof to prove that some people who are obese eat less but gain a lot of weight due to the fact that metabolism rate is slow.
The ma causes of obesity are as follows:
1. Diet: It has always been a major concern when it comes to obesity. Regular consumption of food that activates tastes buds like sweets, junk food, deep fried ,fatty and oily food etc causes obesity. With societies getting more dependent on big-portion, energy-dense, fast food meals, the involvement between obesity and fast-food consumption has become more alarming.
2. Sedentary Life Style: A sedentary life styles is a major concern when obesity is in picture. Due to various technologies, physically driven work has been reduced to a major extent which has resulted in over 60% of the world’s population getting less exercise. This is because of higher prevalence of manpower saving technology at home. It has observed in children’s and adults, the connection between risk of obesity and television viewing time.
3. Genetics: Like most of the health related problems obesity is due to an interaction between environmental factors and genetic. Polymorphisms in various metabolism and genes controlling appetite dispose to obesity when adequate calories are there. Obesity is a chief characteristic in numerous syndromes, such as Bardet-Biedl syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, MOMO syndrome and Cohen syndrome. When early-onset severe obesity is observed in people , 7% harbor a single point DNA mutation.
4. Medical and Psychiatric Illness: Certain mental and physical illnesses and the medicines used to treat them can raise the threat of obesity in an individual. Medical illnesses that raise the threat to obesity involves several rare genetic syndromes as listed above as well as some congenital or acquired conditions like Cushing's syndrome, growth hormone deficiency, hypothyroidism and the eating disorders like night eating syndrome and binge eating disorder. The threat of being overweight and obese is much high in patients with psychiatric disorders than in persons without psychiatric disorders.
Some medications might cause gain in body weight like sulfonylureas, certain anticonvulsants (valproate and phenytoin), thiazolidinediones, , atypical antipsychotics, insulin, , steroids, antidepressants , some forms of hormonal contraception and pizotifen.
5. Infectious Agents: When a comparison was made between lean and obese humans, a difference was found in Gut flora. It has been indicated that Gut Flora can affect metabolic prospective in lean and obese persons.