Obesity, one of the most common nutritional disorder. Obesity means deposition of excess fat in our body. Usually, fat is deposited in and around abdomen, waist, thighs, and buttocks. Generally, we measure obesity in terms of weight. If someone is above normal standard weight, we often consider them as obese but it’s not true always. Just because someone is above the standard weight we can’t say that is obesity. Sometimes people might weigh above the standards due to muscles or bone weight. If we take a boxer or a body builder, their weight is above the ideal weight but we can’t consider them obese as their weight is due to the strongly built muscles but not fat. So later, other parameters came into existence to measure obesity like body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio, skin thickness over triceps and interscapular area. The most popular method among them to measure obesity is BMI.

Also, check out our earlier post on basic health education people everywhere should be aware of.

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How to know BMI?

BMI means body mass index and it’s a popular parameter to measure obesity. You can find it out yourself in the following way.

Weight (kg) divided by height squared

Usually, normal BMI is 18 to 25. Less than this is underweight. More than 30 are considered as obese. Between 25 to 30 are overweight. Only the category is different but overweight people often have the same complications as obese people.

Ideal body weight for height

BMI index

Draw a line from your weight to height diagonally and the point where that line intersects the BMI is your body mass index.

How to find out waist-hip ratio?

Waist-hip ratio is another parameter to measure obesity. In the case of women, if their ratio is above 0.9 they are considered obese. Whereas in the case of men if it’s above 1. If you take only waist circumference, people with more than 40 inches in men and 35 inches in women are considered obese.

Health complications of obesity

Just cause of obesity, people are prone to so many health complications. We need to control obesity to avoid the following diseases.

• Obese people are prone to cardiac issues like hypertension, coronary artery diseases, strokes, hypercholesteremia.
• Pulmonary problems. Their lungs functionality will be compromised. They will be suffered from obstructive sleep apnoea and obesity hypo ventilation syndrome.
• Obesity often leads to Diabetes.
• They are prone to develop gall stones. Male hypogonadism.
• Menstrual abnormalities. Polycystic ovary disease.
• Due to obesity, they are also prone to develop cancers of colon, rectum, prostate, gall bladder, bile ducts, breast, endometrium, cervical, ovaries.
• Osteoarthritis, gout, plantar fasciitis, and spondylosis.
• Acanthosis nigricans (blackening of the skin). Friability of skin increases which lead to fungal infections.
• Venus stasis leads to deep Venus thrombosis and also leads to pulmonary embolism.
• Extreme obesity has some psychological issues. Disfigurement, loss of self-confidence, bullying.

Causes of obesity

Let’s see what are the causes of obesity first before we go to the prevention part.

1. Genetic tendencies

The genetic tendency is the major cause of obesity. If the parents are obese, the children will also be prone to obesity if they don’t take proper precautions.

2. Eating habits

Consuming excess food is also one extremely important cause of the obesity. If a person requires 2200 calories and he consumes 2500 calories, the excess 300 calories will be deposited as fat. Every 7500 excess calories will be deposited as 1 kg fat.

3. Activity

These days there’s no scope for much physical activity due to the advancement in technology so, exercising every day is a must.

Also, check out why do people become obese.

Also, check out how being obese affects your health.