Obesity Crisis

Obesity is a leading preventable cause of death worldwide, with increasing prevalence in adults and children, and authorities view it as one of the most serious public health problems of the 21st century. Obesity is stigmatized in much of the modern world (particularly in the Western world), though it was widely perceived as a symbol of wealth and fertility at other times in history, and still is in some parts of the world. In 2013, the American Medical Association classified obesity as a disease.
Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health. It is defined by body mass and further evaluated in terms of fat distribution via the waist–hip ratio and total cardiovascular risk factors. Body mass is closely related to both percentage body fat and total body fat. In children, a healthy weight varies with age and sex. Obesity in children and adolescents is defined not as an absolute number but in relation to a historical normal group, such that obesity is a Body mass greater than the 95th percentage.

                                                  

 What is Obesity:

Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems. People are considered obese when their body mass , a measurement obtained by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by the square of the person's height in metres, exceeds 30 kg/m².




 Obesity increases the likelihood of various diseases, particularly heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, certain types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. Obesity is most commonly caused by a combination of excessive food energy intake, lack of physical activity, and genetic susceptibility, although a few cases are caused primarily by genes, endocrine disorders, medications or psychiatric illness. Evidence to support the view that some obese people eat little yet gain weight due to a slow metabolism is limited; on average obese people have a greater energy expenditure than their thin counterparts due to the energy required to maintain an increased body mass.

A case study  led to the prediction that if we do not take appropriate measurements to curb the increasing obesity problem and raise alarms, then by the year 2015,  2.3 billion adults will face the problem of being overweight and 700 million adults will face the problem of obesity. This in turn, will affect the economy of the health systems and associated elevation in the medical costs for the insurers.