Obesity

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(xv)    Mortality: Most studies show an increase in mortality rate associated with obesity (BMI over 30). Obese individual have a 50-100% increased risk of death from all causes, compared with normal weight individuals (BMI upto 25). Most of the increased risk is due to cardiovascular causes.

(xvi)   Other Downsides of Obesity: Most corporate officials would choose a normal weight applicant over an obese applicant with the same qualifications and experience. Similar discrimination occurs in promotion also. Obese children also face social stigma of discrimination and low self-esteem. They also face teasing and bullying at school. High fat diet usually consumed by obese children also results in fall in scores in the exams.

 DIETING AND WEIGHT LOSS

Harmful Effects of Fad Diets

80.     A fad diet is one that promises quick and unrealistic results. Fad diets take advantage of people’s emotions and give them false hopes. These diets promise a quick fix for obesity and lead you to believe that weight loss takes little effort. Fad diets usually include eating plans that do not provide adequate nutrition.

81.     Conventional fad or crash diets (like low fat, low carbohydrate, high protein, or grapefruit and soup diets) to shed weight are dangerous and usually don’t work and will not work in the long term and even worse, most of them are tedious, pointless and downright dangerous to the body. There are many branded diets worldwide such as Atkins Diet, Dr. Hay Diet, Cretan Diet, Cambridge Diet, Hollywood Diet, Mediterranean Diet, Detox Diet, and Fruitarian Diet etc. etc. If you follow any of these diets that restricts one or more of the macro-nutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fat), most of the time you will actually lose lean muscle and lower your metabolic enzyme function. Sure, they might, in the short term, help you lose some weight in a few weeks or even in a few months but it would be virtually impossible to sustain. This is because the rate at which food is broken down and used for the body – a process called thermogenesis – is weakened by the stress of constant dieting, making it difficult for you to lose weight and keep it off. So in the long run, most of the dieters won’t be able to continue with these fad diets because ultimately they will gain the weight back and won’t be doing their body any favours. Many people make dieting their second career but always end up in a frustrating cycle of dieting.

82.     It is estimated that 95% (if not more) of all crash dieters put the weight back on within one year of ending the miracle diet guaranteed to lose 2 kg. a night while you sleep. When we diet, our body only recognises a “famine mode” and does what it has always done – slows down metabolism to conserve its portable energy stores from fat. We mainly lose water, muscle and bone. Once we begin eating again, we “feast” and our body will store fat at a greater capacity than before the diet, because it now recognises that there still are famines.