Obesity: Public Enemy Number One

Obesity is defined as an excess accumulation of body fat of, usually 20% or more over an individual's ideal body weight. Obesity is a chronic disorder and associated with a multitude of medical disorders, including early death.

Obesity does have various classifications: those who are 20-40% over their ideal weight are considered mildly obese, those over 40-100% over ideal weight are moderately obese and those over 100% over ideal weight are morbidly obese. Today, these arbitrary numbers are rarely used and a measurement called BMI (Body mass index) is used where the weight is compared to the height. When the BMI is over 30, one is considered obese.

Today obesity has reached epidemic proportions not only in North America, but in Europe as well as Asia. Estimates indicate that nearly 60% of all Americans are overweight.

One thing that has been acknowledged is that drugs may not be the answer in controlling the obesity epidemic and a change in life style is mandatory. Therefore, along with these weight loss physicians, there has been an explosion of nutritionists, exercise gyms, herbal therapists, psychologists, spiritualists, yogis and a whole host of other experts- all who have been burdened with solving Americas number one health problem. The majority of these so called experts are in the business to make money and Quack therapy is very prevalent in the obesity business.

All the excess weight may be good to prevent one from feeling cold, but apart from this benefit, obesity is a life threatening illness and associated with diabetes, arthritis, hypertension infertility and even cancer. Obesity has now overtaken smoking as the number one public health problem. At least 300,000 deaths are directly attributed to obesity and countless more complications go unreported.

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