As you read these lines, there is a medical condition that is destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of people the world over. Its magnitude is enormous and its implications hard to measure. The part of the population affected by this disease is growing; it does not respect social level or age. I am referring to excess weight and obesity.
North America has tipped the scales for years as the heaviest region in the world. But countries such as the UK are facing the issues regarding an increasingly overweight population and countries like China, who had never dealt with obesity before are faced with this all too real epidemic of the modern age.
Childhood obesity is a growing concern among educators and the medical community. Studies have shown a possible link between obesity and lower academic performance, and to some degree, obese children face the same host of medical issues that obese adults do.
Though study after study places African Americans and Hispanics at higher risk for obesity, the disease truly knows no race; across the board, Americans keep getting heavier and their health issues are growing with them.
An article published in www.everydayhealth.com states that:
“In the last 33 years, not a single country has made serious progress in the fight against obesity. While in 1980, 857 million people worldwide were overweight or obese, by 2013 that number had more than doubled. Today, nearly one third of all living people — a whopping 2.1 billion — are either overweight or obese. These stats, including the graphics, come from a new analysis of 1,749 published studies on weight from around the world, published in the Lancet in May [2014].
The analysis showed that the United States is home to the highest number of overweight and obese people in the world. In the U.S., 70.9 percent of men and 61.9 percent of women are overweight or obese, compared to 38 percent of men and 36.9 percent of women worldwide …28.8 percent of boys and 29.7 percent of girls are overweight or obese in the U.S., compared to 14.2 percent of boys and 14.7 percent of girls worldwide”
These last numbers illustrate the bleak future today’s children may be facing in terms of health and productivity. Yet, tragic as childhood and teenage obesity numbers are, the greatest evidence of the increase in obesity and overweight remains in adults; the bracket that carries a country in its shoulders, the most economically active population, where we find all the parents and the people responsible for holding society together: teachers, police officers, workers, taxi drivers, professionals, public officials, etc.
As a reference for understanding what obesity is you should know that currently, the preferred tool for determining if a person is within the parameters of healthy weight is the body mass index (BMI), which takes into account size and weight to determine a number that places the person within a specific range. A person with a healthy weight will have a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9, a person with a BMI above 25 is considered overweight. A BMI of 30 means obesity type 1; above 35 is obesity type 2 and morbid obesity (or type 3) starts when the BMI hits 40. Patients with a BMI greater than 50 fall into the category of the super obese.
Obesity offers concerns for many reasons. It can cause lack of mobility, low self-esteem and social isolation and is certainly a determining factor in the deterioration of overall health. The data indicate that blood pressure, cholesterol, multi-causal mortality and mortality due to stroke and heart attacks increase both in overweight men and women.
To study and offer a solution to this crisis is the most important challenge we currently face in the global medical community. But a solution generated from a single sector would be insufficient for a problem of such magnitude. Profound and urgent changes must be made in issues that go from food policy to the advertising of certain foods to minors, as well as in other important areas.
Remember, our team is at your service and we can help. For a free evaluation call LIMARP International Center of Excellence for Obesity at (664) 686-2542 or fill out a contact form at www.limarp.com