overweight and obesity

Overweight and obesity are serious and growing health problems. According studies, an around 1 billion person in the world is overweight and obese. Too much body fat problem has reached epidemic proportion in the world. This is not only a threat for wealthy nations but also for developing countries.
Obesity levels have tripled in the past 20 years. Obesity may soon overtake smoking as the world's biggest health problem. Those are obesity facts.
Obesity resposibility for over 10 milion deaths annually in the world and childhood obesity epidemic are alarming obesity facts.

Am I overweight or obese?

Overweight and obesity terms mean that a person's weight is greater than what's considered healthy for his or her height. Common indicator of weight status for adults is Body Mass Index (BMI). It defines a person’s weight according to their height. A BMI between 20 and 25 is seen as healthy, between 25 and 30 is overweight. BMI greater then 30 is definition of obesity and greater then 40 is definition of morbid obesity.
Waist circumference is linked to abdominal fat.
A waist circumference above 102 cm for a man and above 88 cm for a woman indicates overweight.

Why people are overweight and obese?

Cause of obesity and overweight is energy imbalance over a long period of time. This involves eating too many calories and not getting enough physical activity. A combination of several factors may be cause of energy imbalance for each individual. Behaviour and environmental factors are the main contributors to overweight and obesity.

Health risks associated with overweight and obesity

Obesity is not just a cosmetic consideration. All overweight and obese adults are considered at risk for developing associated morbidities or diseases such as hypertension, high blood cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and other diseases.
Morbid obesity leads to obesity hypoventilation syndrome.

How to lose weight?

Theoretically it is very simple. Weight loss occurs when the calories used are greater then the calories consumed. Change your behaviours, develop healthy eating habits, abandon bad eating habits and exercise regularly. Worst thing what you can do to lose weight is to try some of traditional crash dieting programmes. They can do more harm then good.