Obesity: Why you need to maintain healthy weight

The problem of obesity is gradually becoming epidemic across the world. Research shows that there has been increase in the rate of obesity globally, particularly in the last 30 years. Though many celebrate weight gain and sees it as a sign of good living but it does not just limit your wardrobe and dash self-esteem, […]

The problem of obesity is gradually becoming epidemic across the world. Research shows that there has been increase in the rate of obesity globally, particularly in the last 30 years.

Though many celebrate weight gain and sees it as a sign of good living but it does not just limit your wardrobe and dash self-esteem, it can be a symptom of some serious health conditions, experts said.

Obesity is defined as a high body mass index (BMI) with a large amount of adiposity. A chronic excess energy intake above energy expenditure leads to abnormal or excessive fat accumulation which isositively correlated with several other forms of mental disorder in general population samples.

A specialist in endocrinology and metabolism at the Wuse General Hospital, Abuja, Dr Rakiya Muhammed Ngoshe, defined obesity as an increase in the body fat that is sufficient and can cause hazard to health or affects health adversely.

She added that obesity can also be defined in terms of BMI, that is when somebody has a BMI more than 30kg per metre square.

Dr Ngoshe said, usually, it can be caused by environmental and genetic factor explain that with the global increase, some scholars have argued that the environmental factor may be more important. “The environmental factor is an interplay between increase in energy intake, particularly calories and decrease in energy expenditure that is, decrease in physical exercise.”

Explaining the cause in terms of genetic factor she said, it is caused by mutation that is, when you have permanent change in the nucleautide sequence of a genetic in the gene that usually control appetite in the brain adding that the individual will present with hyperphagia that is, increase in appetite and eating, increase in linear growth and Hyperinsulinemi.  with normal puberty and fertility.

She said, obesity is generally caused by eating too much and moving too little. “If you consume high amounts of energy, particularly fat and sugars, but don’t burn off the energy through exercise and physical activity, much of the surplus energy will be stored by the body as fat. Another cause of obesity is drug, particularly steriod and some drugs use in the treatment of diabetes and drugs likes canabis can cause increase weight.”

Dr Ngoshe while speaking on the management of obesity said it can either be medical or surgical and for the medical, some of the drugs used has been withdrawn because of side effects particularly adverse cardiovascular outcome and suicidal ideation. “Counselling is an effective method of managing obesity.”

“The surgical treatment include, gastric banding, gastric bypass surgery, and other. In some of the procedure, you reduce a portion of the patient stomach so that the person will eat a little at a time. Or you bypass the stomach so that there will be malabsorption of some nutrients which help the patient to lose weight. Usually, most of the  patients loose about 50 percent of their weight in one year and it is associated with improvement in their physical wellbeing and recuction of mortality.”

The Endocrinologist said that the surgical method is mainly practice abroad and what is obtainable here is treatment through Orlistat adding that the most important thing is to prevent it. “To prevent obesity, we advice patient to increase physical activities\exercise so that the patient will be able to have 150 – 300 minutes of moderate intense exercise per week. This exercise is also important for maintenance of weight loss if the patient has lost some weight.”

Acoording to her, healthy eating  is also encouraged by eating low fat and high fibre foods. “We also encourage development of policies that will promotes wellness among children and adult.”

To prevent obesity in children, she said, you can encourage them to increase their physical activities, limit high sugary foods, limit numbers of hour they spend in front of TV and computers because it keep them in a place and does not give room physical activities.

“Get professionals that will help them lose some weight if they already gain weight and encourage more exercise. Schools should encourage sporting activities that can help children live within their normal weight and not be obese.”

Dr Ngoshe also advised everyone to cultivate the habit of intake of high fibre food and vegetables and discourage intake of fatty foods adding that preventing obesity will help individuals against other diseases such as, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, stroke heart attack and so on.