Obesity Campaign Poster (Credit: Pressbound)

Obesity has become a major health problem in developed countries where unhealthy diets and sedentary lifestyles are widespread. This is in stark contrast to the major health problems faced by underdeveloped countries of the world – largely caused by malnutrition.

This is the first of two posts in which I will try to give you an idea of bad obesity is, and I hope that after reading this you will understand why you need to lose weight if you care for your health. If you think you or anyone close to you should go on this journey then get them to read this, and get them motivated to lose weight.

In the second part I will be writing about 3 effective ways to lose weight, and they won’t be just about exercise and starving yourself. There are some really effective ways to lose weight without exercise including simple tweaking of your diet (not necessarily reducing it) and tracking a few useful measurements. So stayed tuned for that.

What is Obesity?

The dangers of being obese are huge, increasing your risk of developing or exacerbating some of the major killers. These include diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and heart disease which are some of the greatest causes of mortality. And these are just the medical conditions that are listed; other issues with obesity include being less mobile due to size and weight, stress on the joints, lungs and heart due to the extra pressure that is being applied constantly.

What is Obesity? – It is based on the body mass index (BMI) which is a measure of the proportion of fat the body is composed of. The healthiest BMI range has been found to be between 18.5 and 24.5 for Caucasian men and 20 to 24.9 for Caucasian women. Anything above 24.9 is considered overweight and obesity is when anything higher than 30 on the BMI scale.

In the United States more then 70% of the adult population are obese (as of 2007) with around half classed as obese. In other developed countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada the level of obesity is between 18% and 23%.

Why You MUST Lose Weight

We know that obesity is the sources of some of the biggest causes of death around the world, but that’s not the whole story. Having a condition such as heart disease, diabetes or high blood pressure severely limits what you can do. Doctors will recommend that you never push your body too far, and too far can be simple pleasures such as sports. You’ll also likely have to be on permanent medication to alleviate and control a chronic medical condition. Here are a few examples:

• Type I Diabetes – Insulin production is non-existent or severely limited, which requires the sufferer to inject insulin (via needle) before each meal. This means that you can’t eat whenever you feel like it and that you must plan you daily activities carefully so that you eat at the right time, the right food, and do the right activities so that you can control your blood glucose level manually.
• Chronic Heart Disease and High Blood Pressure – Medication, usually in the form of pills, need to be taken multiple times a day without fail for the rest of your life. With this condition you can’t do strenuous physical activities, and stress can also aggravate the condition.
• Obesity – Due to your size and weight many physical activities are not accessible to you, which may include many things you enjoyed before putting on too much weight. Joints, particularly the knees and hips, are under elevated stressed to hold up your weight compared to a healthy individual.
• Apnea – It’s not uncommon to find cases of sleep apnea where the airways are blocked during sleep from the weight and pressure from excess weight on the chest, causing asphyxiation and death if not alleviated.

So you see the problems with being overweight are not just the diseases that increase the likelihood of dying at a younger age, it also makes life difficult. You probably already know these things suffer from the follow on effects it can have.