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A Few Hard Facts On Obesity
The first important fact on obesity is that it is a condition
in which the body has excessive fat that leads to the risk of
developing heart diseases, type II diabetes, high blood
pressure as well as osteoarthritis and asthma. When the body
cannot balance its intake of calories with its energy
expenditure, it eventually becomes obese.
One Third Of Adult Americans Are Obese
Another fact on obesity is that there are as many as one
hundred million people in America, or fifty-five percent who
are overweight, and one third of adult Americans are obese.
Furthermore, over the next decade or so, seventy to eighty
percent of all heart disease deaths may occur from type II
diabetics, and obesity is the primary cause of such a
condition.
There is also hypertension to contend with, which is closely
associated with obesity, and it may be evaluated in different
ways, which are body mass index or BMI, measuring total
circumference of the waist, and finally, considering other
disease risk factors normally attributed to obesity.
There are more facts on obesity that show that an estimated
ninety-seven million Americans are overweight, of which
thirty-eight million are obese, and in the preceding twenty
years, the number of children that were obese are thought to
have doubled. Obesity in African-American girls is the fastest
growing among all the different demographic groups in
America.
There are even more hard facts on obesity available that
underscore the dangers of such a condition, and if one goes
into adulthood and turns twenty and is morbidly obese, and a
male, it could result in their losing twelve to thirteen years
of life, while in the case of females, it would result in a
loss of eight years of their lives. A pretty frightening
thought, if one considers it as a twenty percent loss of life
expectancy.
Other facts on obesity reveal that, in the US, it is a complex
as well as multi-factorial chronic disease that may occur due
to environmental (social and cultural) factors or genetic,
physiologic, metabolic as well as behavioral and psychological
factors, and leads in being the cause of preventable deaths in
the U.S.
It is also known for a fact that obesity increases the risk of
illnesses, and is associated with increase in deaths from all
causes. Persons with obesity problems will be more likely to be
at risk of impaired mobility as well as be the butt of social
stigmatization and discrimination when seeking employment or
entering academic institutions.
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