Weight Loss Articles

Obesity is one of those subjects that everybody has been hearing about for the past couple years. It has been becoming gradually worse for the past two decades, but we are just realizing this. America has the greatest obesity rate in the developed world. In the past 25 years the amount of fat grown-ups and adolescents have risen by 100%. Nearly a third of all adults over 20 and nearly a fifth of the total children were overweight as of 2004. This means that millions are too fat and endangering their health. It is now thought of as one of the greatest health threats in the country as the prevalence of over weight americans continues to get out of control. What happened to make us all so big? This overall increase in size has many contributing environmental factors that are now thought of as the American way of life.

During the 1980's, Americans began to have several factors of daily activity change to make for a more sedentary lifestyle. The biggest impact was the eating habits. Meals that at one time was eaten at home and cooked by the homemaker are now 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 portions back in the 60's. Fast food chains like the McDonald's chain have come under serious fire for their extra large high calorie sodas and french fries in the last few years, but a cheeseburger available in many of today's most common restaurants could be over double the size of a McDonald's Big Mac, with an amount of fries to match this enormity. Only one of these super-sized meals can be a person's entire day's necessary calories.

Whether obese or not, you are still being affected by the rising obesity rate. In the airline business, lawsuits to widen passenger seats that are started against airlines by obese customers and the extra fuel that is required to haul all this extra weight is now costing us an estimated 275,000,000 dollars a year . An annual cost of 78,500,000,000 dollars is the cost of treating the number of health conditions started because of obesity, as it makes up nearly 10% of all medical costs. The cheeseburger bill of 2004 was introduced by lawmakers to attempt to offer some protection for food makers after lawsuits with overweight people became so common.

BMI, or body mass index is what is used to calculate obesity. The higher the BMI, the more likely the person is to be in poor health. There are three levels of obesity; 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 obese is 2 times as likely to suffer a life threatening medical problem early than a normal person. Obesity kills an estimated 112,000 people in this country per year. Only some of the possible conditions that are associated with being overweight are; cancer, stroke, heart attack, diabetes, and liver disease. There are also many of non-deadly conditions like depression, loss of bowel control, breathing problems, and swollen legs.

Most of us live a sedentary lifestyle, another major factor of obesity. Most of us own vehicles and use them to travel everywhere they go, even if we could walk. Crazy lifestyles and hectic work hours make it difficult for most of us to allocate the time to exercise. Many occupations are now less physically demanding as technology has advanced. Because many Americans will work at the office on a computer all day and do nothing active all day because they are exhausted from work.

Affluence is another big factor that seems to link to the weight problem. As citizens in developed countries acquire more and more wealth, the requirement or concern to save is diminished gradually. Bigger and more different choices are now available to kids compared a generation or two back where a family's budget could limit this. With parents that eat out constantly because excess income enables them to show their children early in unhealthy eating habits with rich, high calorie restaurant foods. More of us are less concerned about where our food comes from and focus more on our personal desires in a country that produces almost three times what it's entire population eats.