Obesity – One of the Effects of Overeating

May 31, 2009 by Linda Jenkins  
Filed under Eating Disorders

If a person has a body mass index of 30 and above, he or she is considered to be suffering from a medical condition called Obesity. The percentage of people who are obese is very alarming due to its fast increase. Every country all over the world seems to be facing the rising problem of obesity. Obesity can have negative effects on the obese person. Not everyone will experience the same effects, but the risk is still there.

Low self-esteem is the first effect. It is common in individuals who are suffering from obesity. They feel that people will not accept them because of their physical appearance. Because of people scrutinising them, they gradually develop different moods. There are times that they just want be alone and hide from the world.

People who are obese have a hard time finding clothes that will fit. If you are able to extend your budget, you can buy clothes from special stores that offer large sizes. This can embarrass some people because they can’t shop in stores that don’t offer their size. Even if they like a certain dress, they are not able to buy it because of the limited sizes.

People who are obese might have chronic fatigue syndrome. Obesity can rob them of their vitality and make it exhausting to move. It may also affect their mental alertness, stamina and endurance. These people easily feel exhausted even if the distance that they covered is small. The fat impairs their ability to move freely and quickly.

Some obese people suffer from chronic conditions that may require medical treatment. Back problems are experience by obese people and they tend to endure it rather that talking to their doctor. They are afraid and embarrassed that they will be lectured not on the back problem but with their diet and daily activities.

Some individuals think that fat is a sign of being healthy, but that is not true. They eventually develop medical problems that can be a threat to their life. The most common disease that is associated with obesity is diabetes which makes them prone to heart disease too. They can also acquire liver disease when they take medications for additional health problems they develop.

Obesity is very common in women too and it can affect one’s fertility and pregnancy. Being obese reduces ovulation and creates a low response rate to fertility treatments. Birth defects and pregnancy hypertension can develop in a pregnant woman who is suffering from obesity. Such women can also experience post-pregnancy complications.

So you see that obesity can cause a person a reduction in their happiness and quality of life. They can acquire diseases that affect their health and decreases their life expectancy. It is one of the worst effects of overeating.

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What is the Fatality Rate with the Lap Band Surgery?

April 23, 2009 by Paul Teitelman  
Filed under Weight Loss Surgery

One of the newest and most promising forms of weight loss surgery for the morbidly obese is called the Lap Band, which involves the placement of an adjustable band to the upper part of the stomach to create a smaller pouch for food to enter and be digested. This procedure is said to create a feeling fullness after a relatively small meal and helps the patient to lose weight faster than by traditional dieting and exercise methods. Lap band surgery is reversible and can be adjusted to meet the dietary and physical needs of the patient. It’s also considered much safer than other forms of weight loss surgery. However, since it’s actually a surgery of the abdomen, Lap Band weight loss urgery carries with it certain risks.

Here are some of the risks, including current fatality rates of Lap Band surgery.

Infection – Just as in any form of surgery, but most often with gastric-abdominal surgery, Lap Band surgery carries a higher rate of infection than minor surgical procedures. The area that the Lap Band occupies, the upper part of the stomach, is particularly susceptible to infections or problems as a result of the cavity it occupies. In addition, stomach acid can cause problems if the stomach is ulcerated or perforated accidentally during the band placement or as it adjusts to the stomach itself. In some cases, the band has been known to actually cut into the stomach itself and cause ulcers or openings in the stomach, allowing acid and infections to start.

Slippage – Although there have been several modifications and improvements to the Lap Band over time and use, the band can sometimes slip off the intended portion of the stomach and cause problems. The band can become entangled in other areas of the stomach cavity or it can become ineffective when it slips off the area that creates the smaller stomach pouch. This can be reduced by careful monitoring of the band over time.

Herniation – if the stomach becomes overextended from the patient overeating, the band can cause the stomach to herniate. The catheter port that sits near the outside of the abdomen wall where the physician inserts fluid to adjust the band internally can also become herniated. Again, careful monitoring of the band and all its components, as well as careful adherence to a strict diet, may prevent this from occurring.

Fatality – Just as in any other form of surgery, there is always the risk of death. It’s unfortunate that in some cases, Lap Band patients have died during the actual surgical procedure or from complications that occurred as a result of the Lap Band surgery. These fatalities may have included excessive blood loss during surgery, heart failure, stroke, leakage of stomach acids into the abdomen or post surgical infection. The current fatality rate for Lap Band surgery is less than 1%, so it is relatively safe as compared to other forms of weight loss surgery or morbid obesity in general.

If you are considering Lap Band weight loss urgery, you and your doctor should discuss all the possible advantages and risks associated with this procedure before-hand to get the best results.

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Avoiding Childhood Obesity Starts at Home

April 22, 2009 by Dave Owen  
Filed under Childhood Obesity

It’s of concern how often families today trust the education system to instruct their children all sorts of things other than just reading, writing and arithmetic. A lot of parents delegate the obligation for avoiding childhood obesity on the shoulders of the school board as well, thinking that gym classes and nutrition should be part of the school’s curriculum so that children can continue to be fit and healthy. This is an extremely ill-judged attitude by parents and one that is a surefire recipe for disaster. To combat childhood obesity and to keep children healthy and ablee-bodied, there must be changes made in the home first and foremost.

One of the reasons that parents cannot trust the school systems to take care of this is that many schools just cannot offer gym classes the way they once did. Schools are usually overcrowded these days so the gymnasium needs to perform as a lunch room for more hours than ever before. Without regular physical exercise, childhood obesity is an almost sure thing. And just educating a youngster about calories and fat and nutritional content of food doesn’t mean that he or she is going to avoid junk food and fast food also! Just knowing about these matters is not motivation sufficient to help a child make the choices needed to avoid childhood obesity.

A parent’s example and what goes on in the home is definitely a better indicator of whether or not childhood obesity will be avoided. Children generally learn lifestyle choices and attitudes from their parents whether they’re aware of it or not. Parents that are active and that always have activities to do will probably raise children that are active and busy as well. Those parents that lay around on the couch each evening and on the weekends may find childhood obesity a problem in their own home. This is because children are being taught to be sedentary and inactive. If a parent takes the effort to prepare meals that are simple but wholesome a child will learn to value wholesome food and to take the extra time and effort required to prepare such dishes. But when a parent is regularly falling back on drive-through meals and other poor dietary choices, a youngster may learn that such food is satisfactory. This also may increase the cases of childhood obesity in the home.

Adults too can set limits with their children while they’re with them to assist avoid childhood obesity. No one can altogether control their child when they’re on their own, but providing only nutritious meals and snacks when children are home will lessen any damage they’re doing by consuming junk at every other time! Many cases of childhood obesity are also associated to inactivity during the day and evening. With this in mind parents can plan times to go to a zoo, aquarium, or other places where everyone walks around. Other way to help stave off childhood obesity by biking, walking, playing catch, playing Frisbee, setting up a badminton net, or other activities that involve all the family members.

As a parent, you must take responsibility for the health of your child. This includes making sure that he/she gets proper nutrition along with adequate exercise. Without this, they may become oe of the many kids that are falling thru the cracks into obesity.

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Common Failures of Lap Band

April 22, 2009 by M Vasquez  
Filed under Weight Loss Surgery

Lap Band surgery has been hailed as being one of the easiest ways for a person to lose weight but truth be told there are definitely some problems with the procedure. While these problems are not exactly endemic or typical of lap band surgeries, they are problems that can cause intense problems for the people that have undergone the surgery and for that reason are failures that people should know about before they actually go ahead and have the surgery done. The two most common failure of lap band would have to be migration errors and erosion errors.

The migration error is an error that takes place when the band that is being used actually ends up moving from one part of the stomach to another. The whole point of the lap band surgery is that when the band is inserted into the body, it can then be used to constrict the stomach and in doing so it can then be used by the person with the band to regulate the amount of food that they take in. However, the band is operating in an area of the body that does not have a large amount of friction and for that reason the natural movements of the human body over time can cause the band to move from one part of the stomach to another or even get dislodged from the stomach entirely in severe cases. This not only completely cancels the effectiveness of the band, but it also means that another operation needs to be scheduled in order for the doctor to go in and replace the band or maybe even remove it entirely if that is what the patient now wants.

The erosion error is an error that has similar results, although for a different reason. Rather than moving out of position or falling off where it is supposed to be, a band that experiences an erosion error actually sees part of the material within the band disappear entirely. This happens because of the friction forces such as they are between the stomach and other parts of the body and the band. When the person moves, the band rubs against these different parts. Over the course of time, the creation of that type of force can create holes in the layering of the band, causing parts of the band to erode away. If the error is particularly bad, these parts can then be absorbed by the body and potentially create some feelings of illness as a result. The erosion error is usually more serious than the migration error because of this possibility.

These are the two main common failures of lap band and of course they are not mutually exclusive events. If a person is particularly unlucky they can experience both errors and be in a very bad state. This is why it is important to know about these errors before you actually agree to have lap band surgery done.

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Dangers of Obesity and its affects on Diabetes

September 13, 2008 by Peter  
Filed under Weight Loss

Television channels today are constantly churning out more news about the perils of diabetes and its rise in the population in the United States. Thus it hardly surprises anyone to learn that obesity and diabetes are closely linked to one another.

Really the fact is Obesity is the NO 1 cause of diabetes, unfortunately when you look into it, by being obese you are setting yourself up for a fall. Because obese people can also be more afflicted by stroke heart disease and heart attack.

According to the Center for Disease Control or CDC, obesity and diabetes are so closely linked as to result in obesity being the primary reason why people develop diabetes.

The actual size of the problem is growing, and it is proven by figures constantly released by the surgeon general. These figures worryingly show that the size of our populations have grown, in fact doubled in the last 10 years. The problem is as we have grown so has type 2 diabetes, the scourge of the 21st century.

Poor Food Choices

To find out why people are becoming more diabetic we simply need to get to the root of the problem and find the real reason why diabetes and obesity go hand in hand. You only actually have to look at the food people consume.

One of the worst foods to eat is fast food the reason for this is that it is chock full of fats, calories and carbs. All of these combine to make you put on weight and increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Wrong Exercise Choices

When a diet includes both fast food and soda, the problem is compounded even further because soda is known to contain sugar as well as carbs in high amounts. This can lead you to becoming a diabetic from consuming excess of soda and when combined with high calories and fat, will also cause you to become obese.

The 3RD factor that bring on obesity and diabetes is people that consume in such a way, also tend to forget exercise which then contributes to both obesity and diabetes and to even cause certain heart problems as well.

So there you go, its in your interests to become knowledgeable about obesity and diabetes and if you are at risk of contracting the diseases, you should always be aware of the signs. Please understand that excessive sugar will make you diabetic and that your fav hamburger can in the wrong amounts make you obese thereby worsening your health and causing more complications, which can include a diabetic condition.

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