How to fight obesity?

As humanity, and especially as the citizens of highly developed countries we tend to systematically gain more fat. We eat so well (maybe even too well) that the problem of obesity to be easily called an epidemic. The worst part of the problem is the fact that we do not understand where this epidemic of obesity comes from. Scientists have been thinking about it for many years, why some of the people are obese whereas other people do not have any problems with an excessive fat. The amount of obese people in the highly developed countries is estimated at 25% of the whole population. Public campaigns and appeals, which called for the reduced food consumption and increased physical effort, where of no avail. The epidemic of obesity grows and their impact on the health of the people who suffer from it becomes dangerous. It is because in addition to the well known dangers that result from the obesity, we tend to learn about new ones, such as the skin cancer, which occurs more commonly in the population of obese people. Another problem of the obese people in general is the fact that the treatment of any disease is much less effective – the treatment is slower than among the people who are not overweight. Obesity complicates the treatment procedures at every stage (i.e. it is harder to put obese people in the state of general anesthesia). This means that the surgeries of obese people are of higher risk and they have lesser chances of recovery. It is today when we should start worrying that the obesity constantly increases among young people and, perhaps, even our children. This plague of obesity can have a disastrous impact on the health of the future generations.

So what can be done in order to effectively fight the constantly growing number of obese people? For us, the people who are not obese, it is easy to perceive overweight persons as the ones who lack the strong will and cannot limit the food consumption. It turns out, however, as proven by numerous scientific researches that the obesity does not only depend on the human nature. In highly developed countries, many medical institutes try to understand the knowledge about obesity and how to prevent it. If we look at ourselves as a population from the perspective of the past 20 or 30 years and consider the eventual causes of obesity, we will stumble upon a very obvious answer. We eat more than we need because the access to the food is easier than ever. Today, the food is omnipresent and it is full of calories, smell and flavor. It attacks us from magazine covers, TV advertisement and supermarket shelves. It is a fact that we love energetic food, which is like a high-calorie bomb.

It is estimated that the contemporary citizen of a highly developed country eats daily about 200 calories more than his organism really needs...

On the other side, the modern society has limited the need for physical effort and even the need for any movement in our daily life. We go to work by our car and our job is based mostly on sitting in front of a computer screen. After our work, we are completely unable to force ourselves to move, not to mention any physical effort. It is possible to state that we are in the turning point of the human race. Our bodies once were designed, through evolution processes, for the constant struggle and physical effort in order to acquire something to eat, whereas today, there is plenty of easily accessible food without undertaking any physical stress. In such a situation, our original nature desires to eat to our heart’s content and the lack of physical effort causes us to eat more calories than we actually need. The outcome of this practice, on the long run, is obesity.

How much fat we get depends on a few basic decisions – what to eat, how much to eat, when to eat and when to stop eating. What in our body affects the decisions taken as far as the food is concerned? How can we control it? The numerous researches conducted in many countries at many different universities and science institutes try to find the answers for these questions. So far, the people who have visited their health practitioners to report their problems with obesity always received the same advice – eat less, move more. However, it turns out that this does not work. People are not willing to undertake physical activities and limit food. This is how they lose the fight against obesity and fat gaining.

The scientists who conduct their researches try to establish the reasons why some of the people are more prone to gain fat and become obese, whereas other do not seem to have any similar problems. What decides about it and how can we control it? What decides about our hunger and our satiety? It turns out that 2 hormones are responsible for these sensations. One of them is Ghrelin, which is the „hunger hormone” (hunger–stimulating peptide), and the second one is PYY hormone - „satiety hormone” (appetite–regulating peptide).

The discovery of these 2 hormones allowed to understand the problem of obesity. It turned out that the stomach communicates with our brain and has the influence on our sensation of hunger and satiety. The researches in this field have proven that the people who have no problems with obesity, have these hormones functioning properly. Thus, when the healthy and non obese people are hungry, their “hunger hormone” sends the strong impulse to their brain about the starving state. On the other hand, when the same people are full, the PYY hormone, which is the “satiety hormone” sends this information to their brain. This is the mechanism that functions in the healthy person who is not obese. However, if these hormones do not function properly, a person will eat despite the hunger sensation is very small – the brain will receive the signal for eating and the improperly functioning “satiety hormone” will try to send the signal, which is not strong enough to stop the person’s appetite. Such situations cause the constant hunger among obese people and they make them response with excessive eating. What follows is the fact that whether we are obese or not, our hormones remain responsible for our sensations of hunger and satiety. So, obesity is not only our strong will but it is also our biology and our hormones.

Hormones, however, are not the sole cause of our obesity problem that is of our biological origin.

Our genes are also responsible for it. Scientists confirmed the presence of a gene responsible for the gain of weight and they found that it can be either “active” or “inactive” (the science that studies this field is called epigenetics). The activation of this gene causes the modification of the person’s metabolism. Here comes the question – what causes the activation and deactivation of the genes? It turns out that the general factor responsible for it is the environment in which we live, and especially the stress. The most important information here is that the gene of weight gaining can be both turned on and off. The researches provide us with a very small light of hope for the people who suffer from obesity and overweight problems. At the moment, the studies explain and allow us to understand the significance of our biology in the fight against obesity. These researches, however, fail to provide us with any effective remedy leaving us with our strong will to limit the consumption supplemented with the physical activity or a regular physical effort, which is even better.

Well, for those who tried everything and still lose to obesity, the last resort is the surgical operation, which is the stomach reduction – Gastric bypass. The operation is based on the reduction of the person’s stomach from the size of two fists to the size o a thumb. This particular method allows for a significant reduction of the body mass in a relatively short amount of time. However, the effectiveness of this method on the long run is still under numerous studies.

At this moment, this is the dim light of hope for the obese people. Obesity is the plague of the contemporary civilization and it is crucial to remember that it has not only the negative influence on our physical health but also on our psyche (self esteem, social perception, complexes, neurotic disorders, depression).

The resent researches prove that the BMI (Body Mass Index) is a very significant element, which influences our life expectancy. The BMI value between 30-35 kg/m2 shortens the person’s life by 2-4 years in average, whereas people who have BMI at the level of 35-40 kg/m2 live shorter by about 8. And if they additionally smoke cigarettes their life becomes shorter by even 10 years!!! Statistically, every increase in BMI by 5kg/m2 (from the optimal number of 22,5kg/m2), increases the risk of mortality by 30%.

So it is worth to fight. And it is not only the fight for the longer life expectancy but also for the better quality of our lives.

What to do in order to free yourself from the spiral of obesity? At the moment, the only effective way, which is recommended by doctors, is to be on a diet and to perform physical exercises. Is it possible to find the exercises that are effective and compatible with our lifestyle?

While choosing the exercises it is worth to consider immediately these several aspects:
- Are these exercises weather-dependent?
- Do these exercises shape your whole body or just a few muscles?
- What are the benefits of these exercises – will they benefit my whole body?
- Are these exercises easily accessible every day?

In the highly developed countries, the general prescription for weekly physical exercises is as follows – either 150 minutes of moderately intensive exercises or 75 minutes of intense training. If somebody follows this prescription, then it is great. Unfortunately, only a small percent of the whole society, and apparently it is the one that suffers from the obesity, follows this exercise prescription. One can ask what are the gains of a regular physical effort among the people who are not obese? Well, there is much more to gain from the physical exercises than just the loss of weight. These other benefits include: the overall increase in our body’s efficiency, better metabolism, increased oxygen efficiency, which is the improved delivery of oxygen by the heart and lungs. The oxygen efficiency is often called the “oxygen level” and it shows how fit we are (right after 1 month of training, our oxygen efficiency can be increased by about 10%).

And this is not the end of the gains, because:

Sports and physical activity help in the production of lipoprotein lipase in our bloodsteam, which helps in the reduction of harmful lipids – triglycerides (according to the recent studies, the high level of triglycerides increases the risk of heart attack and stroke much more than the high cholesterol). The intensive physical effort can reduce the level of harmful triglycerides in our bloodstream even by 30% thanks to the creation of lipoprotein lipase. This also reduces the risk of fat deposits’ accumulation on the walls of the blood vessels and the accumulation of visceral fat on the abdominal organs (much more dangerous than the fat tissue we can see on our belly).

Sports and physical activity increase the production of testosterone, which is not only beneficial to the erection but also on the self esteem and cellular metabolism.

Sports and physical activity, at every age, increase the strength of the muscles, prevent from the loss of muscle mass and bone mass (it is observed that between 20 and 70 years of age, we lose about 20-40% of muscle and bone mass).

Sports and physical exercises is the excellent prevention in the fight against type-2 diabetes. The whole mechanism, described in details, can be found in the section: EXERCISES AGAINS DIABETES.

Sports and physical activity prevent the aging symptoms, allow to make through menopause and andropause painlessly. The whole mechanism, described in details, can be found in the section: EXERCISES AGAINS AGING.

It can be seen that obesity can be the main inspiration for us to take up the physical exercises, but the benefits we gain from the regular trainings stretch far beyond the simple fight agains fat.