Introduction
Today, obesity is one of the most common diseases in many countries. Obesity is not so dangerous but leads to several complications and causes many life-threatening diseases. Currently, many ways to treat and prevent obesity often do not require medication intervention but only a human lifestyle change. Nevertheless, more and more research is needed to encourage more people to make these necessary changes for their health. Hence, the study, diagnosis, and prevention of obesity are one of the highest priorities in modern medicine.
Causes of obesity
There are two large groups of causes of obesity. Blucher (2019) writes that most of the cases of obesity worldwide are related to improper lifestyle, and only a minor one has a connection with a person’s hormonal background or genetic predisposition. Starting with the first and more prominent group of causes of the development of this disease, it is worth noting improper diet and lack of sufficient physical activity. It is also worth noting that in the study of the causes of obesity, prevention means the ways to avoid the reasons that create this illness.
Improper nutrition
Even in the scientific community, there is a great deal of debate about the definition of good nutrition. Still, several universal tips can serve as a prevention of obesity. Safaei (2021), for example, highlights eating the optimal daily caloric intake for one’s body type, avoiding junk foods, which often include convenience foods and fast food, eating small meals frequently during the day, etc. All these recommendations are directly related to the causes of obesity, which in its essence is related to the receipt of the body more calories than it has time to use up. Despite their caloric content, fast food, sugary drinks, and other unhealthy foods cause the body to feel poorly satiated with food, are poorly digested, and lead to a person consuming more calories than they need.
A passive lifestyle
It’s no secret that modern man is spending more and more of his time at the computer or in front of the phone screen. The availability of cars, the development of electronics, and other global trends have made the lifestyle of the modern man more passive, which hurts his figure. In addition to learning how to get the right calories, the body needs to consume them correctly. Otherwise, the muscle tissue begins to participate poorly in processing fat. Low physical activity and a sedentary lifestyle, which can be due to his professional duties and a way of spending ordinary leisure time, lead to the fact that a person’s body begins to deposit fatty accumulations, which leads to obesity. Unfortunately, modern man is often forced to spend most of his life in a sedentary position, and the lack of time and ideas of careerism lead to the fact that people eat fast and affordable food instead of healthy, forgetting about their health.
Internal factors of obesity
Meldrum (2017) writes about another critical group of reasons why people can be obese a set of failures in the internal organs and systems of the person. It includes various endocrine diseases, brain tumors, the influence of hormonal drugs, or genetic heredity associated with a lack of enzymes responsible for the breakdown of fats. All of these causes are less common and require medical attention to address the cause of the problem. In this case, obesity is instead a symptom of other diseases, which in any case can lead to the development of other pathologies in the body. Incidentally, there are also psychological reasons for the development of obesity associated with stress, long-term depression, insomnia, and other psychological diseases that affect the hormonal background of the person, and consequently on the work of his digestion, feelings of satisfaction with food, etc.
Effects of obesity
Obesity is a factor that increases the risk of many other internal human diseases. The World Health Organization, in a 2020 report, warns that obesity causes respiratory and heart failure, coronary heart disease, hypertension, and arthritis and can lead to the development of diabetes and some cancers. Blucher (2019) also wrote that obesity is a multifactorial disease, the essence of which refers not only to excess weight but also to changes in the functioning of all internal organs of a person. It is also noted that excess weight has a detrimental effect on the bones and joints, forced to be overloaded constantly, which can lead to diseases characteristic of the older part of society.
Causes of atherosclerosis development
In addition to the problem of obesity itself and the consequences it causes, several comorbidities also lead to severe complications. For example, obesity is almost always accompanied by high cholesterol levels in a person’s blood, significant accumulations that block blood circulation, narrowing, and sometimes even clogging an artery. It is just one of the principles obesity influences the development of other diseases, often leading to a patient’s premature death.
The relationship between obesity and diabetes
Diabetes is another example of the development of a chronic disease caused by excess weight. Of course, not all overweight people get diabetes, but the disease is several times more common in those who are obese. It is because obese people have increased insulin secretion, leading to higher blood glucose levels. Thus, obesity can lead to the development of a chronic disease that requires a change in a person’s entire lifestyle.
Difficulties arising from obesity
Finally, being overweight creates difficulties in a person’s life. People who are obese are susceptible to more rapid exhaustion and have difficulty performing physical activities. Increased shortness of breath, fatigue, and many other symptoms of obesity also make the person uncomfortable in everyday life. The exact consequences of obesity can include problems with sexual activity in men because excess weight interferes with the average production of the male hormone testosterone. Thus, in addition to increasing the chance of developing other diseases, obesity can interfere with a person’s daily life and negatively affect their reproductive function and hormonal background.
Conclusion
Thus, poor diet and inactivity are the main, but not the only, causes of obesity in humans. Several genetic, hormonal, and psychological diseases can cause this, but the underlying cause must be treated first. Obesity is a considerable danger to human civilization, as it leads to several severe diseases of many human internal organs, which significantly reduces the average life expectancy of a person due to the accumulation of problems with age and their increasing danger. A wealth of literature on avoiding obesity often boils down to maintaining an active lifestyle and eating a proper diet. It could reduce the burden on the already ecologically weakened human body, reduce the risk of many serious diseases, and prolong life.
References
Blucher, M. (2019). Obesity: global epidemiology and pathogenesis. Nature Reviews Endocrinology, 15(5), 288-298.
Meldrum, D. R., Morris, M. A., & Gambone, J. C. (2017). Obesity pandemic: causes, consequences, and solutions—but do we have the will?. Fertility and sterility, 107(4), 833-839
Safaei, M., Sundararajan, E. A., Driss, M., Boulila, W., & Shapi’i, A. (2021). A systematic literature review on obesity: Understanding the causes & consequences of obesity and reviewing various machine learning approaches used to predict obesity. Computers in biology and medicine, 136, 104754.
World Health Organization. (2020). Overweight and obesity.