Obesity has been a major concern from past many years and the number of total cases is increasing every year. As the numbers are increasing, people are now becoming more concerned about it because it not only affects your external look but also affects your internal organs adversely.
This increases the risk of getting chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure along with certain cancers as well. There is not just a single reason for obesity but there are many factors that directly lead to causing this major health problem.
However, the good news is that you can prevent obesity or overweight in advance and afterwards as well by following some techniques, increasing physical activities, dietary changes and healthy food habits. Here, we are going to discuss obesity, what causes obesity and how we can control it. To know all these details, check the following post.
What is Obesity? What are its Health Risks?
Obesity is mainly a complex disease which is resulted due to an excessive amount of body fat in your body. It is a medical problem that is resulted due to several inherited factors like environmental change, unhealthy diet and exercise choices. Most commonly, obesity is also said as overweight and it specifies a weight greater than what we call healthy.
Your body requires a certain amount of body fat to store energy, heat insulation, shock absorption, as well as to perform various other functions. But when its exceed than the healthy amount, then it might be a serious concern as it may cause several medical problems such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cancer, Gallstones, Sleep apnea and so on.
What Causes Obesity?
There are many factors which directly or indirectly lead to causing obesity in an individual. The most common factor is an imbalance between calorie intake and energy expenditure. However, there are also many other factors for obesity that we have explained below:
Lack of Physical Activity
When a body performs some physical activities, even walking or standing, it burns calories and adding more intensity to it will burn more calories. However, if you will not perform any task that will require your body to move then it will end up causing Obesity. This factor is the most common factor for most of the people for gaining overweight.
Unhealthy Diet or Overeating
Overeating is becoming a major concern these days because of the availability of many options and varieties in food items which increases cravings and hunger more often than usual. If you are overeating then you will definitely gain, especially, when your diet is high in fat or sugar such as fast food, fried food, etc. Studies have revealed that unhealthy diet and overeating are the main reason for obesity.
Genetics and Hormones
Obesity inclines to run in families. It has been also proven that if one or both parents are obese then their children might also have chances to develop obesity. Most of the time genetics also affect the hormones that are involved in fat regulation and due to which the next generation of the family might also face obesity. Though it might tend to run in families it doesn’t mean it all just because of their genes but instead of genes the family members also share their eating habits and lifestyle. Several studies have also revealed that women are more likely to gain weight as compared to men especially at the time of certain events like pregnancy, menopause, and so on.
Psychological Factors
There many people who are dealing with psychological problems due to which their emotions are uncontrollable which influences their eating habits. However, in some people emotions like sadness, stress, or anger can also trigger their hunger or cravings.
Ailments
There are some diseases which directly affect your weight whether you are overeating or not such as hypothyroidism, polycystic ovary syndrome, insulin resistance, etc. These diseases contribute to causing obesity.
How Can We Prevent Obesity?
Though obesity can be caused through several factors the good thing is that it can be cured if we follow certain activities or lifestyle systematically. Daily Exercise and a healthy diet are the major solutions to cure obesity. Here is the list of things that you should perform in order to prevent obesity.
Routine Exercise
Body movement is must if you want to burn calories, however, if you tend to burn it fast then you have to add more intensity to your movements. Therefore, even a half an hour moderate-intensity activity a week will help you to prevent yourself from gaining weight. You can go running, swimming, lifting weight, doing cardio and so much more.
Adopt a Healthy Diet Plan
A healthy diet is a solution to many health issues that our body is dealing or might develop in the future. Overeating and unhealthy diet are the main reason for obesity and therefore we must control our eating habits so that we don’t develop extra weight. Go for healthy food that is rich in fibre, protein and eat low-fat and low-calorie foods. Consume limited alcohol and try to avoid sugar in your diet plan or else intake less amount of sugar.
Plenty of Sleep and Stress-Free Routine
Every individual requires 7-8 hours of restful sleep every night in order to gain energy and to release stress. In other words, a good sleep every night can solve most of our psychological problems and as we have said above some emotions can also lead to trigger our hunger and cravings. Therefore, restful sleep is a must to avoid any kind of stress as people tend to eat to more when they are in stress. Try to feel positive every day and avoid taking more stress by involving yourself in some stress-free activities.
Check your Weight Daily
You must set a target for every week for losing weight and weigh yourself every day to check whether you are successfully going in the right direction or not. By checking your weight every day will help you to monitor your day to day efforts because of which you will be motivated throughout your Weight Loss process. With the help of this, you can even detect even a small weight gain due to which you can solve it before it can lead to a big problem.
The Wrap-Up
Obesity or Overweight is abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health. The Main Cause of Obesity and overweight is an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended. We have provided here complete details about Obesity, Risk factor, Obesity Causes and how to prevent.