Obesity
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(vi) Osteoarthritis: Osteoarthritis also known as “old age” or “degenerative joint disease”, involving progressive deterioration of cartilage and bone in the joints, is the most common form of arthritis and obese persons are more prone to it due to increase in the load. It affects weight bearing joints, especially the spine, hips and the knees, but may affect other joints too. Excess weight puts excess stress on the joints. If you are overweight, for every kg. you lose, you will subtract about 6 kg. from the load your knees have to support. Say, if you are 5 kg. overweight, it puts extra 30 kg. weight on the knees. It is just like having car tyres on a truck! Maintaining a healthy weight and adopting exercise, healthy eating and active lifestyle schedules immensely help the patients of osteoarthritis to remain overall fit.
(vii) Cancers: Several types of cancers are associated with being obese, including especially of prostrate, colon and gall bladder. Obesity has also been linked to the cancer of the lungs and the liver and fatty liver disease. Obesity in women can also cause breast, uterus and ovarian cancers.
(viii) Infertility: It has long been known that being overweight reduces a woman’s fertility. Now it seems it could have the same effect for men. A team from Reproductive Biology Associates in Atlanta has found that as a man’s body mass index rises, the number of strong-swimming sperms he produces falls and more of them have damaged DNA. Scientists in Denmark have found that men who have obese mothers are likely to have lower concentration of sperms. More and more obese women are finding it hard to conceive. The reason: nearly 90% of them suffer from Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), a complex hormonal disorder, caused by obesity that affects a woman’s menstrual cycle, fertility and insulin production. What is worse, an increasing number of obese girls, as young as 10 years of age are being diagnosed with this condition. Obese women can also face problems like, urinary incontinence, complications during pregnancy, including miscarriage and still birth, gall bladder disorders (stones). Overweight expectant mothers are more at risk of having heart disease, diabetes, infections and blood clots. A study in the UK found that more than half of mothers who died during childbirth between 2003 and 2005 were obese.
(ix) Lungs Disorders: Lung function is impaired with extra body weight, breathing becomes difficult and inadequate oxygen enters blood because of laboured breathing. Children who are obese at a young age can suffer from asthma. It has also been noticed that obese asthmatic children are more prone to severe bout of the asthma disease than normal weight children.
