Obesity Is A Threat For Global Health

Obesity is a leading preventable cause of death worldwide and its prevalence is increasing at an alarming rate (Barness et al, 2007). For thousands of years obesity was rarely seen, it was not until the 20th century that it became common, some much so that in 1997, the World Health Organization (WHO) formally recognized obesity as a global epidemic (Caballero, 2007).

Obesity is known as a condition where a person has excessive fat in their body and it is also defined as being a genetic and environmental factor, which can occur to anyone from child to adult. It is a factor where people eat the wrong foods and do not watch their diet. Obesity or overweight is a very dangerous disease because it can be the leading cause of diabetes, hypertension and even sleep apnea and many more symptoms can be caused by the disease.

Obesity is a big problem in our world today. From the beginnings of 1970’s, America is known for the country on the fast track for being overweight. Obesity can cause health related issues among the people. From the early childhood onwards kids got attacked by the type II diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure and some other lifelong diseases.

The causation of obesity is multifactorial. Genetic and environment factors play a crucial role in the involvement of childhood obesity and a superior role when combined.

Adding, many factors have been shown that Obesity should be taken more seriously then what many people consider. Factors of a person becoming obese can be all of the following, community and environment, drugs, lack of exercise, unhealthy diet, lack of sleep, bad habits (smoking and drinking), genetics, social and economic issues, and one of the most important is they way a person’s family lives. Obesity can happen so quickly in young children if their family does not do anything to make sure their children are getting enough exercise and good nutrition.

Experts have found that there are three contributing factors when studying the causes of obesity: biological factors, decreases in physical activity, and poverty. At its most basic the cause of obesity is the taking in more calories, or energy, than one uses. As people have strived to reach the American Dream – a life of abundance and ease – the biology of the body did not change. This makes it difficult for people to remain slim and healthy.

Obesity: one of the nation’s most critical health problems. “Overweight is defined as having excess body weight for a particular height from fat, muscle, bone, water, or a combination of these factors. Obesity is defined as having excess body fat” (“Centers for Disease Control and Prevention”). When energy input and output get out of balance, obesity arises. Many factors can cause someone to become obese such as genetics, metabolism, level of physical activity, and more. “Overweight and obesity are the result of “caloric imbalance”—too few calories expended for the amount of calories consumed—and are affected by various genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors” (“CDC Features - Obesity & Genetics”). “When a person eats and drinks more calories than he or she burns, the energy balance tips toward weight gain, overweight, and obesity” (“Understanding Adult Overweight and Obesity”). Obesity is increasing throughout the United States due to lack of healthy behaviors, big health risk, genetics and increasing in children and adults.

Worldwide over the last twenty years there have been many research studies into the causes of obesity. While many correlational links have been found, it is safe to say that obesity is a complex multi-faceted problem. Researchers have found a relationship between fetal malnutrition and later in life obesity, as well as a relationship between the thrifty genotype and inability to lose weight. Both of these correlations to obesity are thing that an individual has no real control of so they will not be examined in this essay. Relationships have also been found between increased caloric intake, decreased physical activity, and sleep deprivation with obesity, which are all things we can control so they will be discussed in this essay.

Obesity is described by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as unusual or extreme fat growth that presents a risk to a person’s health. Obesity is a complex disease with multiple drivers such as

Causes of obesity include lifestyle choices such as diets, lack of physical activity, psychological, environmental, genetics, medical conditions, effects of medication, lack of awareness and its implications as well as lack of education in the community. According to Sethi & Vidal-Puig (2007) there is a high risk of developing a wide range of health problems including type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, infertility and osteoarthritis when obese and puts

Obesity in America is now an epidemic. There are many contributing factors to obesity (both childhood and adult), such as biological, environmental, social, or economic factors. Obesity has plagued Americans in the 20th century due to increases in childhood obesity and decline in physical activity.

Obesity is becoming an epidemic all around the nation and is now officially considered a disease. The purpose of this study is to prove that obesity is a preventable factor among Americans and obesity should be considered the cause to a vast amount of different diseases, but not a disease by itself. This topic is significantly vital to the American society because obesity can decrease life expectancy and increase the number of deaths rates that occur in the United States.

In addition to obesity leading to other health problems, obesity stems from numerous causes such as genetic, environmental, and sociological factors. Other

Obesity and its cause is a complex issue, but the main causes can be generally grouped into three headings: poor diet, lack of exercise and lack of awareness.

Obesity is classified as one of the extremely common and serious public health problems in the world. Overweight and obesity are the fifth leading global risks of mortality in the world (World Health Organization, 2009). Furthermore, they are one of the major factors of for a number of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer (World Health Organization, 2005). According to NHS UK, obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more for adults, and the UK 1990 growth reference curves are used to define obesity for Children (Cole TJ, Freeman JV, Preece MA, 1995). The growing challenge of obesity of Europe countries is remarkable among Asian countries .In 2008, 1.4 billion adults (35%) aged 20 and over were overweight and 500 million were obese (11%). More than 40 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2012(World Health Organization, 2014). That is the global obesity situation. Furthermore, the obesity problem in the UK is not optimistic, the UK has the highest obesity rates among Europe countries, and this trend has strikingly increased over the recent years to the point where more than 20% of the population are now obese. (University of Birmingham, 2014) However, the obesity situation in Singapore is more worrisome. In 2010, 40% adults aged 18 to 69 were overweight and 10% were obese which is more than double the level seen in 1992. (Ministry of Health Singapore, 2010) This essay will