Overweight and obesity

 

 

 

Narrated Ibn `Umar:

Allah's Apostle said, "A believer eats in one intestine (is satisfied with a little food), and a kafir (unbeliever) or a hypocrite eats in seven intestines (eats too much

DIAGNOSIS OF OBESITY

The Difference Between being Overweight and Obesity- How can I Tell?
What is the difference between being overweight and obesity  The "overweight" and "obesity" interchangeably. The two words are not synonymous.
The medical-dictionary definition of obesity describes it as " a bodily condition marked by excessive generalized deposition and storage of fat." This means that throughout the body there is an excess of fatty tissue stored beneath the skin. The key word is Fat.
Weight on the other hand is defined as " a quantity of heaviness " or "relative heaviness". Overweight, then may be defined as over heaviness.

What constitutes body weight?
Your body weight is made up of several components and those such as fat, muscle, and bone vary according to age, sex and height.

What determines the degree of fatness or obesity?
It is the actual amount of "fat" deposited beneath your skin which determines your degree of fatness or obesity. Doctors often use a simple rule of thumb which gives them a general idea of the degree of obesity in persons above the age of twenty-five years. With reference to a standard weight chart, if you are more than :

1. ideal weight + 20% you are said to have clinical obesity.
2. ideal weight + 40% you are said to have gross obesity.

How does food get converted to fat in the body?
Fat stored in the body can be made from any food component - carbohydrates, proteins or fats. When food is eaten, it travels to the stomach and intestines. Enzymes break down food into glucose, amino-acids and minute droplets of fats. The fats travel to the liver and are processed to form fatty acids and glycerol. From the liver, the fatty-acids enter circulation where they are broken down further to release energy for immediate use by many organs. Any excess is reconverted to fatty acids and stored in fat cells under the skin and around the internal organs.

HOW FAT FORMS
Fats stored in the body can be made from any food component (carbohydrates, proteins or fats). When food is eaten, it travels to the stomach and intestines. Enzymes breakdown the food into glucose, amino acids and minute droplets of fat. The fats travel to the liver, where they are processed. From the liver, the fats enter the circulatory system where they can be used for energy by many organs. Excess fats will be stored in the fat cells (1). When more energy is needed, fats are released. If the need continues, the cells will shrink but the nucleus remains the same (2). The glycerol is converted to glycogen, which is either broken down at once to release energy or stored in the liver’s glycogen storage system. When this is full, the glycogen is changed into fat and stored in body cells, making you over-weight, if a lot is stored there.

What is that makes people fat?
Prof. Sir Charles Dodds of the Royal Society of Medicine, conducted the following experiment :- He took people whose weights had been constant for many years and persuaded them to eat double or treble their normal amount of food. They did not put on weight.
He then overfed people whose weights had not remained constant in the past and found that they became fat.
From Prof. Dodds’ experiment, we learn that two people of the same size, doing the same work and eating the same food will react quite differently when they overeat. One will stay the same weight. Why? The answer is that of metabolism. The first category of people when given extra food responded to over- eating by increasing their metabolic rate, i.e. the rate of using of the food by the body, and burnt up the extra food. The second category of people showed no increase in metabolism, when over-fed, and simply changed the food into fat.
This fact about two people reacting quite differently when they overeat, has been known to us, and yet this fact never seems to be taken into account or explained by the various experts who write popular books and articles about slimming.
Ancient science of Ayurveda on the other hand , was well aware of this physiological fact, and in their text- book like ‘Bhava Prakash" they mention certain plants and their products that can successfully and safely combat obesity.

What exactly is metabolism?
Metabolism is the term used to include in one word all the complex chemical processes within the body which determine the growth and replacement of the body tissues, the production of body heat and energy necessary for muscular activity and other vital functions. In a sense then, what lay people call the life processes of the body, scientists call the meta- bolism.

But Doctor, I eat my food in normal quantities, then how do you account for my problem of obesity ?
The real question that needs answering about obesity is :
What is the cause of the fat man’s failure to use up as much energy as he takes in as food? It could be that although you only eat normal quantity, some defect in the way your body deals with food, deflects some of what you eat to your fat stores and keeps it there instead of letting you use it up for energy.
In other words you have a defect in your metabolism which a person with constant weight does not have. Too much attention has been paid to the input side of the energy equation and not enough to the possible causes of defective output. Even with a low food intake, a person gets fat because his output is small. And this need not be because of insufficient exercise, but because something is interfering with the smooth conversion of fuel to energy in his body and encouraging it’s storage as fat. Which means that something is wrong with his metabolism. The metabolic rate of every individual is different.

What is metabolic rate? Is there any test to determine it?
All individuals are metabolically different. One person’s metabolism may be more active or less active than another’s. The metabolism, then has a "rate". The rate may be average, slow, or fast, as the case may be.
Just as you might judge the heat in a kettle by the amount of steam coming out from its spout, so too scientists have a way of determining the human metabolism rate.
The amount of carbon dioxide thrown off by the breath keeps pace with the heat production of the body. A apparatus has actually been devised to measure this output. A person’s internal heat production can be determined by taking into account his /her height and approximate skin area in relation to his/her carbon-dioxide output.
You can take a metabolism test usually twelve hours after you have eaten a light meal of about 70 degrees F. and when you are at absolute physical and mental rest. The result of this metabolic test is called the "Basal Metabolism Rate’. Doctors call it the B.M.R.
You must have seen a fire burning brightly and quickly in a draft. Well, in a sense, the basal metabolism rate is the draft in which the bodyfires burn - scientifically, ‘oxidation’ takes place. It is by oxidation that body heat is produced - that warmth of life, the 98.6 degrees F. temperature that your body has in health.
The rate of your basal metabolism has much to do with the question of food and body fat accumulation. Basically, body fat is food, which has not been burned into heat or energy. Now if food is the fuel source of humanbody heat, and metabolism the medium that converts food into heat, there must be a definite relation between basal metabolism rate and fat production - and there is, a decided one.
A normal metabolism rate helps you greatly to stay just about normal in weight. A slow metabolism rate makes you tend to put on kilos, and a high metabolism rate is apt to keep you thin.

But my Doctor says that I have normal metabolism rate, then why am I fat?
To my mind, this is not strange because the basal metabolism rate, is a comparatively crude measurement of the "total" metabolism. A component of the total, such as fat metabolism, may be functioning abnormally without affecting the complete picture, just as an aberration of sugar metabolism in diabetes, is not reflected in the basal metabolism rate.

Doctor could there be any other reason for my obesity other than my metabolism ?
The underlying reason in more than 95 per cent of all cases of obesity, is an imbalance between energy output and energy intake. That is, the body in carrying out its functions, does not expend as much energy as it takes in through food and liquids. This is a disturbance in metabolism, and it shows up in three ways :-

 

1. The body forms fat at a rate that is faster than normal.
2. The body stores fat at a rate that is faster than normal. Fat formed in the digestive system quickly reaches the arms, the thighs, in the form of fat deposits - the deposits that stretch your skin and distort your shape.

The body disposes off stored fat at a rate that is slower than normal. This is why it is so difficult to lose weight from the places you want to lose it. The body that is forming and storing fat can’t get rid of the fat already stored as easily as it should. The disturbance in your metabolism therefore works on you in three ways, all very damaging.

Health HAZARDS OF OBESITY         

Why should I reduce?
The success of a weight-reducing programme is based on extreme co-operation and motivation on the part of an obese person. You have to want to reduce.
Anyone who wants to reduce must feel strongly enough about it so that he will adhere to a reasonable reducing-regimen and adhere to it full time. One cannot follow it five days a week and hope for results. As you will see my plan for a Balanced-Nutrient Diet requires certain adjustments in eating habits. Nothing drastic. Just sensible eating. Perhaps substituting fruits for fried foods as a snack. But you have to make these re-adjustments rigidly. You have to build up your will-power. You have to realize that fat is not just a matter of not looking good or a cosmetic problem. It is a major health problem to millions and millions of people in every area of life.
According to research studies carried out by the Metropolitan Insurance Company of America, the death-rate for obese men ranged 75 per cent higher than that of men of normal weight. For obese women the rate was as much as 61 per cent above normal.
People 7 to 10 kilos overweight have a death rate 10 per cent higher than normal. The rate grows proportionately higher with additional kilos. So every extra kilo you put on increases your chance of dying before your time. If you are 40 kilos overweight, you have 85 per cent greater chance of dying earlier than does a person of normal weight.
There is more than glamour in keeping slim. It can be a matter of life and death.

What will extra kilos do to my blood pressure?
In general your blood pressure tends to go up as your weight increases. A survey on the effects of weight was made on 22,741 officers in the United States Army, both men and women. It showed that among men and women of every age group, blood pressure increased steadily in proportion to their body weight. Hypertension, the medical term for high blood pressure, develops in overweight people two and a half times as often as it does in people of normal weight.
Fat people have higher blood pressure probably because the extra fat puts a special burden on the circulatory system; there is more tissue for the blood to reach. Fat people suffer from arteriosclerosis or hardening of arteries. No one is quite sure of the reason, but doctors are sure that a relationship between this disease and obesity exists.
Based on various research studies of blood pressure measurements of 746 men who worked for Chicago utility company; the United States Department of Health has concluded :

1. More hypertension ( high blood pressure ) exists among the obese than among the non-obese.
2. The obese person with high blood pressure experiences a greater risk of coronary heart disease and heart attacks than the non-obese person with high blood pressure.
3. Death rates for obese persons with high blood pressure are higher than those for persons who are only obese and those with high blood pressure, without the complicating obesity.

What is diabetes? How is it related to my obesity?
Diabetes mellitus is today the third major killer of human beings. In India alone, there are over 15 million persons suffering from the disease and an equal number who are not even aware of it.
There are several distinct varieties of diabetes. Diabetes affecting young children called Juvenile Diabetes is usually insulin-dependent type. These children succumb to their disease if not treated with insulin. Diabetes affecting most adult, the Maturity Onset Diabetes is usually not insulin dependent. It is also heartening to note that 95% of all the diabetics in our country belong to the non-insulin dependent group. They can survive without insulin. The juvenile diabetic is more often thin than fat, whereas the Maturity Onset Diabetic is more often fat than thin.
Research studies have shown that eight out of ten persons - the Maturity Onset Type, are obese when symptoms first appear and that among people who are forty or over, nine out of ten who are down with diabetes are overweight. Diabetes often described as a "fat man’s folly" is a reasonable name.
Amongst the non-insulin dependent diabetics, the lean or normal weight patients are very different from the obese diabetics. The undernourished diabetics often have marked rise in blood sugar and although not dependent on insulin for their survival, they often require oral drugs or even insulin to achieve normal sugar levels. The obese diabetics, in contrast hardly ever require insulin. The fasting blood sugar is often normal and only the "post" meal blood sugar is mildly or moderately elevated in the obese diabetics. Experimentally it has been shown that the obese Maturity Onset Diabetics most often have an abundance of insulin in their blood. But in the presence of obesity the action of insulin is blunted and the body fails to use sugar properly. It is fairly easy to achieve a "cure" for diabetics in this group. Even a modest weight loss causes a distinct improvement in their diabetes. If the weight loss is maintained , the "cure" of diabetes is permanent. Although we do not talk in terms of cure in other forms of diabetes, obesity-related diabetes is indeed curable. Of course we assume here that the obese patient has lost weight and is able to maintain this weight loss.

 

Does too much or too less of a hormone cause obesity or is it the other way round?
Let me explain this with an example.
When certain people are under tension, their system puts out more of an adrenal gland secretion called hydrocortisone which tends to increase the appetite. These people are stresseaters. They feel better when they eat. This leads to overindulgence of food. Result, Obesity.
On the other hand, if a person is overweight, this might alter his body’s metabolism, so that the adrenal glands tend to be over responsive in stress situations leading, to increase in appetite, overindulgence of food and resultant obesity. But the question is, what has led to obesity ? Has increased amount of hydrocortisone caused obesity or has obesity caused increase in secretion of hydrocortisone? In short, it is difficult to say, "Which is the cart and which is the horse?" with regard to over weight and obese individuals.

 

Comment :

In islam orderd

1-  satisfied with a little food 

2- five times short-term exercise

3- prevent stress

4- to control hyperglycima after food