A person is considered obese if he is very overweight with a high degree of body fat. Some experts believe obesity is responsible for more ill health than smoking. Being significantly overweight is linked to a wide range of health problems, including:
• Diabetes
• Heart disease
• High blood pressure
• Arthritis
• Indigestion
• Gallstones
• Some cancers (eg, breast and prostate cancers)
• Snoring
• Stress, anxiety, and depression
• Infertility and many more.

The most common way to assess if a person is obese is to check their body mass index. BMI is calculated by dividing your weight in kilograms by your height in metres squared.

If your BMI is above 25 you are overweight. A BMI of 30-40 is considered obese, while above 40 is very obese. A BMI of less than 18.5 is underweight.

Another useful method is to take a waist measurement because fat in the centre of the body (apple-shaped obesity) is much more strongly linked to health risks than fat more widely distributed on the arms and legs. Women with a waist of 80 cm or greater and men with a waist of 94cm or greater are more likely to develop obesity-related health problems.


Why do people become obese?

On average a physically active man needs around 2,500 calories per day, while a woman needs 2,000. If we eat any more, the extra energy is stored for later use, mostly as fat.
This mechanism was life-saving during our hunter-gatherer days when food was often scarce. However, the boom in plentiful, cheap food, coupled with a general decrease in physical activity, means that those stores of fat are rarely called on. Instead they continue to grow.

So why don't people just stop eating foods high in fat and sugar if they know they can cause physical problems? Scientists are still searching for the answers, but it appears that our brains have been wired to encourage the consumption of calorie-rich foods, even at the expense of good health. Quite simply, these foods bring us pleasure.

One recent study revealed that an area of the brain related to addiction and reward - the nucleus accumbens - lights up when a participant is shown calorie rich, fatty foods compared to healthy food.

Another area of the brain associated with pleasant tastes and reward, called the orbitofrontal cortex, is activated when we eat fatty foods.
At the same time, people are increasingly living more sedentary lifestyles and therefore burning fewer calories.

Studies have also shown that housewives in the 1950s were significantly slimmer than women today. This could be because their daily lives involved much more physical activity, including walking more and having fewer labour-saving devices.
Therefore, some scientists argue that the rise in obesity is a result of our bodies' inability to adapt to the changing environment.
According to the NHS, another reason obesity is on the rise is because unhealthy eating habits are often passed down through families, due to a lack of good food education.

Unless obesity is tackled, the experts predicts that 60% of men, 50% of women and 25% of children in the world will be obese by 2050 and that can be very detrimental. I Want to ask you, what are you doing about that excess fat in your body? Nothing? Hmmm, you better wake up and do something about it before it kills you. Next we meet I will tell you how to get that fat inside out of you

Say NO to obesity.