Obesity (being extremely overweight that can cause death) or overweight means that you have extreme weight and fat on your body. In general, the lack of movement and healthy nutrition results in obesity. When you eat more than your body needs, your body will process the excess nutrients into fat. Even though fat is needed for the making of the food reserve in our body, when one is overweight or obese it means that there is too much fat in the body. Here we exclude those who are overweight or obese due to medical problems such as thyroid disease, depression, or hereditary obesity.
There are various consequences of obesity or being overweight. From breathing issues and back or leg pain to more serious health complications such as high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney stones, heart disease, and cancer.
Measuring Systems
Obesity or being overweight is something that you can see and feel yourself. It can be uncomfortable. But if you want to find out how overweight you are, this will have to be measured. Below we illustrate two of the most used ways by experts to measure if you’re overweight or obese.
- Body Mass Index (BMI). Body Mass Index is a number that indicates if your weight matches your height. BMI is your weight in kilograms divided by your height squared. Today, you can use different websites and apps to calculate your BMI by filling in your height and weight. A BMI that is higher than 25 means that you are overweight.
- ○ Your waist circumference is also an excellent method of measuring the amount of fat that your body has. For this, you will need a measuring tape to put around your belly. A large circumference is defined when the measuring is more than 80 cm for women and more than 94 cm for men.
What can you do?
The first step that you can take is to change your lifestyle. Of course, this is easier said than done. But change is needed for you to reach a healthy weight. Generally, you can start with small changes and gradually adapt until you make a complete change. For example, if you’re always drinking coffee with milk and two spoons of sugar, start by reducing the amount of milk and only add one spoon of sugar. Do this for a few weeks for your body to get accustomed. After this, make another change by completely removing sugar from your coffee intake. In addition, incorporate movement into your daily life. If you’ve never done sports, now’s the time. It’s important to choose a sport that you like since this will make it much easier to adapt to a new active lifestyle.
