We explain what overweight is and what its main causes are. Also, its consequences and differences with obesity.
What is overweight?
It is understood by overweight a continued increase in body weight above certain patterns considered healthy and/or aesthetic, calculated from a Body Mass (BM) formula, which relates weight, height and height. Overweight people are those adults whose CM index exceeds the average of between 18.5 and 24.9 points.
Depending on the degree of overweight we are talking about, people can put their health at risk, and even reach extreme levels, known as obesity. In this sense, overweight It may be a temporary condition a product of a vital situation, or it can become progressively worse, but in general terms it is considered a symptom of certain lifestyles and diet, if not of internal changes (hormonal or metabolic).
Despite the use of CM indices, there is debate about the limits of what is considered healthy or not in terms of overweight. It is worth clarifying that the risk factor is not so much weight as such but the volume of adipose (fat) tissue present in the body. In that sense, other indices such as the WHR (Waist/Hip Index) seem to be more relevant to determine it.
Where there seems to be uniformity of criteria is that from a certain degree onwards, overweight begins to have harmful implications for health and it can become a problem to be attacked in the individual.
Above all, it is important to take care during crucial periods of the individual's physical, emotional and psychological development, such as childhood or adolescence, since they can leave an indelible mark on the individual's personality and bring problems later on.
Currently, 64% of the population of the United States (and other similar countries) is considered to be some type of overweight or obese, and this figure is expected to increase in the following decades. It has already been considered a major public health problem.
Causes of overweight
Being overweight can have one or more causes, such as:
- General trends due to genetic or hereditary factors.
- Metabolic alterations resulting from congenital ailments or diseases.
- Psychological or emotional disorders related to eating.
- Too slow metabolisms due to very low hormonal secretion.
- Metabolism disorders resulting from drugs or other substances of eventual consumption.
- Extremely sedentary life and sustained poor diet.
Consequences of being overweight
Overweight in itself is not a serious ailment, beyond the emotional or psychological damage that it can exert on the individual, as a result of their inadequacy to canons of beauty that do not contemplate fatness or that demonize it. However, there is a proven tendency in overweight people to develop secondary diseases, such as:
- Diabetes mellitus.
- Hypertension.
- Cardiovascular diseases.
- Osteoarthritis.
- Liver cirrhosis.
- Asthma.
- Greater propensity for clotting problems.
- Pancreatitis.
- Developmental delay in children and adolescents.
- Decreased fertility.
Overweight and obesity
Although overweight and obesity are not synonymous, the second can be considered to be a serious and more complicated extreme of overweight. In the most common evaluation of overweight, four degrees of the condition are usually distinguished, which are:
- Overweight Between 25 and 29.9 BMI points.
- Mild obesity Between 30 and 34.9 BMI points.
- Medium obesity Between 35 and 39.9 BMI points.
- Morbid obesity Between 40 and more BMI points.
If being overweight can be associated in the long run with diseases and illnesses, obesity is almost a guarantee of suffering from them, and Fighting it usually involves various aspects of the person's life from the psychological and emotional, to the physical and nutritional.
