Another Day of Thought Processing

So as the day goes by it is a constant exercise of making the right decisions. Do I always make the right ones? No. I wish I could say yes but what I can say is I make much better decisions. This will be a life long process and one that takes constant diligence.

Obesity Overview

The foods we eat every day contribute to our well-being. Foods provide us with the nutrients we need for healthy bodies and the calories we need for energy. If we eat too much, however, the extra food turns to fat and is stored in our bodies. If we overeat regularly, we gain weight, and if we continue to gain weight, we may become obese.
Obesity means accumulation of excess fat on the body. Obesity is considered a chronic (long-term) disease, like high blood pressure or diabetes. It has many serious long-term consequences for your health, and it is the second leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States (tobacco is the first). Obesity is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of greater than 30. The BMI is a measure of your weight relative to your height. See eMedicine's Body Mass Index Calculator.
Obesity is an epidemic in the United States and in other developed countries. More than half of Americans are overweight-including at least 1 in 5 children. Nearly one third are obese. Obesity is on the rise in our society because food is abundant and physical activity is optional.
Each year, Americans spend billions of dollars on dieting, diet foods, diet books, diet pills, and the like. Another $45 billion is spent on treating the diseases associated with obesity. Furthermore, businesses suffer an estimated $20 billion loss in productivity each year from absence due to illness caused by obesity.

Obesity Causes

Weight gain occurs when you eat more calories than your body uses up. If the food you eat provides more calories than your body needs, the excess is converted to fat. Initially, fat cells increase in size. When they can no longer expand, they increase in number. If you lose weight, the size of the fat cells decreases, but the number of cells does not.

• Obesity, however, has many causes. The reasons for the imbalance between calorie intake and consumption vary by individual. Your age, sex, and genes, psychological makeup, and environmental factors all may contribute.
  
  • Genes: Obesity tends to run in families. This is caused both by genes and by shared diet and lifestyle habits. Having obese relatives does not guarantee that you will be obese.
  • Emotions: Some people overeat because of depression, hopelessness, anger, boredom, and many other reasons that have nothing to do with hunger. This doesn't mean that overweight and obese people have more emotional problems than other people. It just means that their feelings influence their eating habits, causing them to overeat. In some unusual cases, obesity may be used as a defense mechanism because of the perceived social pressures related to being more physically desirable, particularly in young girls. In these cases, as with the other emotional causes, psychological intervention may be helpful.
  • Environmental factors: The most important environmental factor is lifestyle. Your eating habits and activity level are partly learned from the people around you. Overeating and sedentary habits (inactivity) are the most important risk factors for obesity.
  • Sex: Men have more muscle than women, on average. Because muscle burns more calories than other types of tissue, men use more calories than women, even at rest. Thus, women are more likely than men to gain weight with the same calorie intake.
  • Age: People tend to lose muscle and gain fat as they age. Their metabolism also slows somewhat. Both of these lower their calorie requirements.
  • Pregnancy: Women tend to weigh an average of 4-6 pounds more after a pregnancy than they did before the pregnancy. This can compound with each pregnancy. This weight gain may contribute to obesity in women.
    

• Certain medical conditions and medications can cause or promote obesity, although these are much less common causes of obesity than overeating and inactivity. Some examples of these are as follows: 
  
  Here is the link to which this articular came from:
  http://www.emedicinehealth.com/obesity/page2_em.htm   
  
  
  Have a good day. May the lord bless and keep you!
  
  Tom