Weight Loss Articles

Being overweight is one of those subjects that everybody has been hearing about for the past few years. It seems that suddenly we all woke up one day to find a stack of pancakes in one hand and a cheeseburger in the other. The nation with the greatest obesity ratio in the world is the U.S.. The amount of obese children and grown-ups has grown by 100% in the last twenty-five years. Nearly a third of all adults past 20 and seventeen percent of the total children were overweight as of 2004. This means the amount of people who are risking their health by being obese goes in the millions. It is now considered one of the largest health risks in the country as the prevalence of obesity continues to get out of control. What happened to make us all so big? Many environmental factors that are now very commonplace are blamed to be the causes of this general increased size.

Americans began to change their daily activities and that made them less active in the 1980's. Eating habits was the primary problem. Meals that at one time was consumed at home and prepared by the women are now more often consumed in restaurants and fast food chains. Due to competition, eating establishments now have portion sizes that double or even triple the portions back in the 60's. A cheeseburger in many of today's most common sit-down restaurants can be double or triple the size of a McDonald's Big Mac, even though the popular restaurant has been under fire the last few years as the leading culprit for our obesity problem. People that are accustomed to consuming the entire contents of their plates can get their full amount of food in one sitting with one of these extra large meals.

Another major reason for being over weight is the lazy lifestyle that many Americans live. Most adults have cars and drive them to travel anywhere they go, even if it is a very short distance. Many people have a hard time allotting the time to work out because of on the go lifestyles or long work schedules. Many occupations are now less physically demanding as technology has advanced. Because many Americans will work somewhere on a computer all day and not have any physical exercise all day because they are exhausted from work.

Affluence is another major reason that appears to link to obesity. As people in wealthy nations acquire more and more wealth, the requirement or worry to conserve is lowered gradually. Children that a few of years ago might have been more controlled on food choices because of a parent's income today are allowed wider and bigger choices in what they partake in. Kids now get their first eating lessons consuming rich, unhealthy restaurant foods with their parents. More of us are not concerned in where our meals come from but focus mainly on our personal cravings in a country that produces nearly triple what it's whole population eats.

The weight problem 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 because of increased fuel charges to make up for the added weight and lawsuits to make larger passenger seats started by obese people. In the medical field, health issues created by obesity now create nearly 10% of all medical bills with an annual 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 plaintiffs became so prevalent.

BMI, or body mass index is what we use to calculate obesity. 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 two times as likely to have a fatal medical problem early than a normal person. Today, obesity is responsible for the deaths of an estimated 112,000 Americans a year. Only some of the possible ailments that are associated with being obese are; cancer, stroke, heart attack, diabetes, and liver disease. Swollen legs, loss of bowel control, breathing problems, and depression are just some examples of problems with obesity that are not fatal but are able quickly turn into that.