Causes of Obesity

                           Causes of Obesity

          Obesity describes the access of body fat. Some studies shown that obesity affects around one in every four adults and around one in every five children aged between ten to eleven. Causes of obesity are complicated and variable; it varies between genetic factors, health conditions, emotional disorders, sedentary lifestyle, unbalanced diet, food production, culture and environmental causes and others …

          First of all, most of people relate obesity for overeating, however, genetic factors are 55% of the reasons for overweight, it could be by hormone or by chromosome. For example, children inherit from their parents a genetic disorder called “FTO” it means a fat mass and obesity-associated protein and this gene is located on chromosome 16; also it’s related to obesity it stores energy from food as fat rather than burning it. Likewise, there is another hormonal disorder that a mother gives it to her daughter: “PCO syndrome”, it means polycystic ovary syndrome, so this kind of hormonal disturbance causes weight gain and other bad things, unfortunately no nutritionist in Lebanon can help the patient to lose some weight on the contrary she will gain some, because the nutritionist are unconscious about this case. Then there are the “Big Boned” people, they are larger than average build. Usually this condition appears in all family members and relatives; they look over weighted but actually they’re not. Etc…

          Second, other than genetic causes, it comes health conditions which it’s divided in two: medical conditions and medicine. In the first hand, in some cases, medical conditions may contribute to weight gain. These include: an underactive thyroid gland “hypothyroidism” where your thyroid gland doesn't produce enough hormones, so the onset of thyroid hormone deficiency may go undiagnosed in obese patients who will continue to increase in weight. Also “Cushing's syndrome” is a rare disorder that causes the over-production of steroid hormones that increase a high levels of Cortisol (another term of hydrocortisone) which plays a big role in the development of obesity, etc... In the second hand medicine-related weight gain can have many causes. Some medicines cause you to eat more and gain extra weight, others might affect cause your body to burn calories at a slower rate and other medicines might affect how your body stores and absorbs sugars and other nutrients. If a medicine causes you shortness of breath, you might be less likely to exercise and others might cause you to retain water, so this makes you weigh more even if you don’t put on extra fat. For instance, there is the list of some of these medicines: drugs for diabetes (insulin, thiazolidinedione’s, and sulfonylureas), antipsychotic drugs (haloperidol, clozapine, and lithium), antidepressant drugs (amitriptyline, paroxetine, and sertraline), drugs for epilepsy (valproate and carbamazepine), steroid hormone drugs (prednisone or birth control pills) and blood pressure-reducing drugs (like beta-blockers) etc…

          Third, science proved another cause of weight gain: emotional disorder. More people overeat even when they aren’t hungry to fill the emptiness, boredom, sadness, guilt, worry, angriness and the depression in their lives. In fact, obese people don’t tend to control their feelings which cause them eating disorder (overeating) then gaining weight, also they face more social and emotional problems more than other people which lead them to consume more food. Likewise, being happy cause some to eat more such as in parties, holidays and events etc… Some obese people believe that food can bring them happiness ad peace of mind. In some unusual case, obesity is used as a defender of mechanism because of the perceived social pressure of being overweight, especially in young girls. Finally, lack of sleep increases the levels of stress hormone which also increases your appetite.

          In addition, the sedentary lifestyle which contain lack of energy and exercise but also sedentary jobs, video games and TV etc… People are becoming lazier: for relaxing they watch TV, lay down on the couch, browse the internet and play video games but rarely do regular exercise. Thus people prefer going to work by car or by bus but never by walking or cycling ... Finally, most of jobs today require to sit in front the desk without any physical move all along the work shift (between 7 and 9 hours per day).  As a result, all this won’t burn calories, so all the food and extra energy consumed will be stored in the body as fat.