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Obesity Causes

Obesity: Causes


Top Causes

1. Direct relationship between emotions and eating

Some people have a habit of overeating in emotional stress such as parental divorce, marital problems, sexual-harassment, anxiety, trauma, and stress. If such a person is under emotional stress for a long time, overeating cannot be balanced by the body’s metabolic activity, leading to obesity.

2. Consumption of alcohol and aerated drinks

People, who consume alcohol and aerated drinks like beer and soda, in large amounts, are more likely to be obese in later life. This is because these drinks are quite high in calories that cannot be balanced by metabolism of the body in most of the cases.

3. Erratic eating habits

People sometimes skip meals, eat meals at odd hours (mornings and late nights) and savor meals in unhealthy conditions (eating while lying down). These actions affect metabolic activity of the body and proper-nutrient balance in the system, leading to obesity.

4. Medical side-effects

Sometimes, the side-effects of certain medical prescriptions such as antidepressants can lead to the development of obesity, due to the breakdown of metabolic activity-management and nutrient-balancing activity in the body.

5. Infectious agents

Presence of infectious agents such as gut flora, hampers proper metabolic mechanisms of the body. When metabolic activity is lower than usual, obesity occurs. It has been found that there is a relation between the presence of viruses in the body and obesity.

6. Social determinants

Surroundings also play an important role in developing obesity. A person living in a community that believes in unrestrained and unhealthy eating has higher chances of developing obesity in later part of life. It has been found that women in high class societies are less likely to be obese than those in the lower class, due to self-consciousness of their physical self. On the other hand, men of high-class societies are more likely to be obese than those of low-class, due to the difference in working-conditions of these people.

Obesity-determining society can be as small as a house to as large as a country. Countries, like the USA, India and the UK, have higher percentage of obesity-population than countries like those in Africa.

7. Medical and psychiatric illnesses

Some diseases such as genetic disorders, growth hormone deficiency and Cushing’s syndrome, lead to obesity in the person, bringing about drastic changes in a person’s physical body. This is dangerous as the system cannot adopt to such a sudden change, leading to more strain in the operation of the body. This leads to collapse of system, inviting other medical disorders such as diabetes. Eating disorders such as binge-eating and night eating syndrome also leads to obesity.

People with psychiatric illness have higher chances of being obese.

8. Genetics

Obesity is a medical condition that is genetically transferred. So, if a person has a family history of obesity, it is likely that he/she will reach obesity at some point of life, even though he/she takes good care of diet. Obesity is also caused by rare genetic disorders such as Cohen syndrome and MOMO syndrome.

9. Sedentary lifestyle

Due to emergence of more sedentary work such as programming, management and counseling, physical activity is largely restricted. As there is no activity that can lead to burning of fat, carbohydrates and fat get accumulated, leading to obesity.

Due to the availability of televisions, playstations, computers, and other sources of technology-related entertainment, people are reduced to their seats to entertain themselves, instead of performing recreational activities like jogging, playing outdoors, and gymnastics. Also, due to the availability of technology like mixers and dishwashers, work has been reduced drastically, leading to lack of activity. This adds to the obesity-situation.

10. Unhealthy diet

The main reason for obesity is the unhealthy diet practiced by a person. Due to the lack of balanced diet, which includes cereals, fruits, milk-products and less spices and fatty foods, there is improper distribution of nutrients in the body. In most of cases, this abnormal distribution is related with fat-generating nutrients such as fats and carbohydrates, which leads to development of excess fat. This excess fat, later on, accumulates to develop obesity.

Unhealthy diet does not only mean that the person is ingesting unhealthy food, such as cheese and meat. It also relates to unbalanced diet in relation with work. A person having high metabolic activity has a balanced diet of various components, but if a person of lower metabolic activity tries to follow the same diet, the diet becomes unhealthy for him/her.

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