We explain what is overweight and what are its main causes. In addition, its consequences and differences with obesity.
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What is overweight?
Overweight means a continuous increase in body weight over certain patterns considered healthy and / or aesthetic, calculated from a Body Mass (MC) formula, which relates weight , height and height. Overweight people are those adults whose MC index exceeds the average of between 18.5 and 24.9 points.
Depending on the degree of overweight we talk about, people can put their health at risk , and even reach extreme levels, known as obesity . In this sense, overweight can be a transitory condition , the product of a vital situation, or it can be gradually aggravated, but in general terms it is considered a symptom of certain ways of life and food , when not of internal changes (hormonal or metabolic ).
Despite the use of CM rates, there is debate about the limits of what is considered healthy or not in terms of overweight. It should be clarified that the risk factor is not so much the weight as such but the volume of adipose tissue (fat) present in the body. In that sense, other indices such as the ICC (Waist / Hip Index) seem to be more relevant in determining it.
In what seems to be uniform criteria, it is that from a certain degree overweight begins to have harmful implications on health and can become a problem to attack in the individual .
Above all, it is of care in crucial times of the physical, mood and psychological development of the individual, such as children or adolescents, since they can leave an indelible mark on the personality of the individual and bring problems forward.
Currently, 64% of the population of the United States (and other similar countries) is considered to be overweight or obese, and it is thought that this figure will increase in the following decades. It has already been considered as an important public health problem.
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Causes of overweight
Being overweight can have one or several causes, such as:
- General trends due to genetic or hereditary factors.
- Metabolic alterations due to congenital diseases or diseases.
- Psychological or emotional disorders in food.
- Metabolisms too slow due to very low hormonal secretion.
- Metabolism disorders caused by drugs or other substances for eventual consumption.
- Extremely sedentary life and sustained poor diet.
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Consequences of overweight
Overweight in itself is not a serious ailment, beyond the emotional or psychological damage that can be exerted on the individual, due to its inadequacy to beauty canons that do not contemplate fatness or demonize it. However, there is a proven tendency in overweight people to develop secondary diseases, such as:
- Mellitus diabetes.
- Hypertension.
- Cardiovascular diseases.
- Osteoarthritis
- Hepatic cirrhosis.
- Asthma.
- Increased propensity for coagulation problems.
- Pancreatitis
- Developmental delay in children and adolescents.
- Fertility decrease
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Overweight and obesity
Although overweight and obesity are not synonymous, the second can be considered a serious and more complicated extreme of overweight . In the most common assessment of overweight, four degrees of the condition are usually distinguished, which are:
- Overweight . Between 25 and 29.9 BMI points.
- Mild obesity . Between 30 and 34.9 BMI points.
- Average obesity . Between 35 and 39.9 BMI points.
- Morbid obesity . Between 40 and more BMI points.
If overweight can be associated in the long run with diseases and ailments, obesity is almost a guarantee of suffering from them, and fighting it usually involves various aspects of the person’s life , from psychological and emotional, to physical and nutritional ones.
