Weight Loss Articles

Obesity is one of these topics that we have all been hearing about for the last couple years. It seems that suddenly we all woke up one morning and found a doughnut in one hand and a cheeseburger in the other. The nation with the greatest obesity ratio in the world is America. The amount of overweight children and grown-ups has doubled in the last quarter century. In 2004, nearly one fifth of all kids were overweight and 32% of all adults past 20 were overweight. This means that millions are too fat and endangering their health. The amount of unhealthy people continues to rise in America and other developed nations and is now one of the biggest health threats in the country. What happened to make us all so big? Many environmental factors that are now very commonplace are believed to be the causes of this general increased girth.

During the 1980's, our people began to started to make many lifestyle changes that caused it to become a more sedentary lifestyle. The biggest impact was the eating habits. Food that used to be consumed at home and cooked by the homemaker are now more and more often consumed in restaurants and quick service chains. Due to competition, restaurants now have portion sizes that amount to three times that of the ones back in the 60's. A cheeseburger in many of our favorite sit-down restaurants can be two to three times the size of a McDonald's Big Mac, even though the popular chain has been blamed as the cause for our weight problem. Only one of these extra large meals can be a person's entire day's required calories.

Affluence is another big factor that appears to link to the weight problem. As people in wealthy countries get more and more wealth, the requirement or concern to save is lowered steadily. Families that a few of generations ago could have been more limited on food choices due to a families budget nowadays are allowed more choices in what they partake in. With parents that eat out constantly because excess income allows them to show their kids form their earliest age unhealthy eating habits with rich, unhealthy restaurant foods. More Americans are not concerned about where our food comes from but concentrate more on our personal cravings in a society that produces nearly triple what it's entire population eats.

Many Americans lead an inactive life, another major factor of obesity. More of us have vehicles and use them to get everywhere they go, even if it is a very short distance. Crazy lifestyles and hectic work hours make it difficult for most people to find the time to work out. As technology has advanced more jobs are getting less physical. So now most Americans will work at the office on a computer all day and do nothing active all day because they are exhausted from work.

Obesity is measured with a body mass index, or BMI. The higher the BMI, the more likely the person is to be in poor health. The three main levels of obesity are mild obesity with a BMI of 30+, morbid obesity at BMI 40+, and malignant obesity with a BMI of 50+. A person that is forty percent overweight is twice as likely to have a life threatening health problem prematurely than a normal person. Today, obesity is responsible for the deaths of an estimated 112,000 Americans a year. The risk of a heart attack, stroke, cancer, liver disease, and diabetes are just some of the possible conditions that come along with being overweight. There are also quite a few of non-deadly conditions like depression, loss of bowel control, breathing problems, and swollen legs.

Obesity affects you whether you're in those demographics or not. An estimated 275,000,000 dollars a year is what we are paying extra in air fares due to increased fuel charges to haul the extra weight and lawsuits to widen passenger seats started by obese plaintiffs. In the medical field, health problems created by obesity now make up nearly 10% of all medical bills with a yearly cost of 78,500,000,000 dollars. The cheeseburger bill of 2004 was introduced by lawmakers to attempt to offer a little protection for food makers after lawsuits with obese people became so common.