Obesity : Health Risks And The Social Stigma

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Physicians recommend diet and exercise as a way to combat obesity and improve personal health. Everyone knows that they’re good for health. It’s common sense. Every doctor tells their overweight patients that they should watch what they eat and hit the gym. With obesity being associated with diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and so many other diseases, you would be hard-pressed to find people who say that the obese aren’t generally less healthy than their thinner friends. Between the health risks and the social stigma that comes with being on the heavy side, it seems pretty clear that there is nothing pleasant about being plump. Many Americans are trying to lose weight. In fact, the weight-loss industry makes about $20 billion…show more content…
You might hear people telling you they have a “slow metabolism” or that they think there’s something wrong with their thyroid. For some that might be the case. When kids are overweight, it’s likely that their parents are too. It’s not wrong to suspect that genetics play an important role in our health. Hypothyroidism does exist, and there are some who need special medication to manage the symptoms of that disease. Although there’s reason to think that some are predisposed to obesity in varying degrees, many of the overweight are, unfortunately, simply making excuses. One study conducted by Lichtman et al. found that there’s a “Discrepancy between Self-Reported and Actual Caloric Intake and Exercise in Obese Subjects”(1). In other words, the study found those who are obese tend to underestimate the number of Calories they consume in food and overestimate the number of Calories they burn as they exercise. In the study, researchers for a two-year period examined a sample of men and women over 20, with a BMI (body mass index) of over 27, and those without a history of taking drugs that affect energy expenditure (however those with a history of thyroid disease who currently had a normal functioning thyroid with or without treatment were still included in the study). The sample was broken up into 16 subjects in a “diet-resistant” group, defined in the study as currently eating
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