We assume that our appetite regulates the intake of food so that it corresponds to our body's requirements. When - to a larger and larger degree - this does not happen and we find it unsatisfactory, the cause for this discrepancy must be found. It can be the result of, for example:
Overeating: A person with a sedentary job can very well work up as large an appetite as a person with a job involving hard, manual work. Of course, this will lead to overweight.
Malnutrition: Here the amount of fat, protein, and carbohydrates in the diet is not optimal. For example, the content of unhealthy fats in the diet might be too high, the fibre content is too low, and the diet could be low in vitamins, minerals, and specific plant nutritents.
Moreover, overweight can be the result of reduced metabolism or inactivity.
The task of maintaining your weight, however, is unequally distributed because of various hereditary circumstances.
Fat cells
A fat cell is a type connective tissue cell found in adipose, otherwise known as fat, tissue which is inflated by a large fat content. We create our fat cells as children and the number of fat cells we have in childhood is roughly the same as we have as adults, regardless of weight gain or loss. Fat cells can be compared to balloons. After they are formed, they can easily be blown up in size. If we eat too much as children we create many more fat cells than we should. This makes it much easier to gain weight and much harder to lose weight as adults. Fat cells can be emptied of fat but they cannot disappear. This is the reason that it is hard for people who were overweight as children to stay at a healthy weight and why overweight children most often become overweight adults.
Fat metabolism
When combusted, 1 g. of fat produces 38 kiloJoules (kJ.) or 9 calories whereas protein and carbohydrates only produce 17 kJ. or 4 calories per gram.
The better you condition, the greater your muscle mass and the better your fat metabolism.
BMI
The weight tables of former times are being replaced by the body mass index, BMI, which gives a much more precise indication of overweight. You can calculate your own BMI by dividing your weight in kilograms by the square of your height in metres. For example, if you weigh 70 kilograms and are 1.75 metres in height, the calculation will be 70 / (1.75x1.75) = 22.9
According to the BMI, the normal weight range is between 20 and 25. Light overweight is the interval between 25 and 30 and actual obesity starts at a BMI of more than 30. If you are not very good at math, you can squeeze a fold of skin on the side of your stomach which should not be more than 1 cm. in thickness. You could perhaps also use a mirror.
Apple shape, pear shape
It is far from unimportant where the fat on your body is located. There is the "apple" shape where the fat is accumulated on the stomach and the "pear" shape where the fat is deposited on hips and thighs. The apple shape is the most unhealthy of the two. The American doctor E.D. Abravanel is believed to have found a connection between the food that overweight people prefer to eat and a dominance of four different endocrine glands. Each type deposits the fat in different places on the body. Only the so-called pituitary fatness deposits the fat evenly over the entire body.
Japanese studies of sumo wrestlers indicate that it is the fat around the organs and not the subcutaneous fat that is dangerous seeing that the extremely obese sumo wrestlers do not have an increased risk of diabetes or cardiovascular disease as long as they are active because they get so much exercise through their sport that the fat is not deposited between their organs.
Daily exercise and a hig fitness rating seem to counteract the harmful effects of overweight.
Organic fat and subcutanous fat
Organic fat is aquired through inactivity, smoking, alcohol consumption, and stress. There is no way of knowing exactly how much organic fat compared to subcutanous fat you have unless you have been scanned; an indication, however, can be obtained through your waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). Measure your waist at the level of your navel and then divide it by your hip measurement. Example: If you are 100 cm. around your waist and 84 cm. around your hip, your WHR is 100 / 84 = 1.2.
Women with a WHR of more than 0.8 have too much abdominal fat and the same goes for men with a WHR of more than 1 because the risk of having too much organic fat then is increased.
Obesity and overweight is not always the same thing. Bodybuilders, for example, will not fit into the normal tables of overweight as muscles weigh more than fat. Fluid accumulations in the body can also be involved.
Many therapists have had the clinical experience that food intolerance can make it difficult for people to lose weight. The non-tolerated products are most often dairy products and wheat; however, other food items can also be involved. Obesity is only rarely caused by metabolic sufferings. Normal age-related changes contribute to the metabolism decreasing with age. Your metabolism also decreases if you let too much time pass between meals.
Stress, psychological imbalance, low self worth, loneliness, and the like lead to compulsive eating. In this case sweets and fatty foods are often chosen and this results in overweight.
Inheritance can be a factor in obesity. Some people can have up to 100 billion more fat cells than others. You can also "inherit" the dietary habits and lifestyle of your parents. It is also possible to have obtained such bad food habits before you were able to choose your food habits for yourself and it is more difficult to maintain a normal weight if you have previously been overweight.
Research indicates that sustained depression in children and youngsters predispose to overweight which often persists into adulthood. However, true hereditary factors that predispose to obesity have also been found; but even though you have a familial predisposition, you will not necessarily get fat. It still depends on your lifestyle. Some people have to struggle more than others, however, to maintain a normal weight. Habits and social- and mental factors can play an important role and make losing weight impossible if you do not get support from your surroundings.
Research also indicates that the body seems to have built-in mechanisms which counteract a weight loss so that appetite will increase and the metabolism will decrease as a consequence of a large loss of weight. This is explained as a leftover from ancient times, where a major weight loss meant famine and could be fatal. Overweight, however, was no threat against the species' survival. This was helpful 10,000 years ago, but useless in our time.
Appetite-regulating Hormones
Some of these built-in mechanisms are two appetite-regulating hormones, leptine and ghreline. Leptine is a hormone made in fatty tissue. It signals to the brain that there energy stores are adequate, and thereby the appetite is inhibited.
Ghreline works in the opposite fashion. It is produced by an empty stomach. It makes us feel hungry by affecting the brains appetite center. Diets involving starving yourself, enhance ghreline production and tempt us to eat again.
Lack of sleep and overweight
Research also indicates that lack of sleep can affect the hormones leptin and ghrelin in such a way that we become overweight. For example, one study has shown that people who only get four hours of sleep per night for two nights running decrease their leptin production by 18% and increase their ghrelin production by 28%. The rule is therefore: the father we come from getting at least seven hours of sleep nightly, the closer we come to risking being overweight.
Children need more sleep than adults, but the principle that lack of sleep can lead to overweight is also true for children, although it is more true for boys than for girls.
Sequelae
Besides resulting in a voluminous exterior and often low self-esteem, overweight causes a long line of symptoms connected to a number of sequelae. The knees, back, and feet can be strained by the weight and cause pain, osteoarthritis, and a tendency to flatfoot. The smallest exertion can cause shortness of breath. Later on, progressive myasthenia might occur as a result of the lack of exercise.
The skin can be folded so much that air cannot enter the folds, and body odour, fungoid growth, and eczema can arise. Moreover, stretch marks and varicose veins might develop. There is an increased risk of elevated blood pressure (see "Blood pressure problems"), atherosclerosis, gallstones, and diabetes.
In overweight, insulin resistance often develops, i.e. the body's cells gradually lose their ability to react to the insulin produced in the pancreas.
Fat, and thereby also body fat, can go rancid and this attracts free radicals, especially if there is large amounts of deposited iron in the body. The harmful effects of this can be seen all over the body and involves an increased risk of developing cancer. Regular diets are also very unhealthy and seem to be able to increase the risk of kidney stones.
Some people simply love food too much. This results in overeating - maybe combined with inactivity - but everyone can lose weight if their daily intake of calories is sufficiently low, e.g. 1000 calories (4200 kJ.) a day. The cause of the overweight and accompanying trouble of losing weight can also be found in other unexpected places. Food intolerance, for example, has been mentioned earlier.
If you eat food with a high glycaemic index, i.e. food that is being transformed into sugar in the body very quickly, it will result in the blood insulin level increasing proportionately.
When the blood insulin level is high it results in the body depositing fat and not breaking down the already existing stored fat - this makes it impossible to lose weight.
In this context, it is the high-glycaemic foods from the carbohydrate group such as sugar and cereals, especially in the form of white bread - and not the fat - that is the villain. These foods can create addiction in line with drug addiction. If you totally remove these products from your diet, it can cause withdrawal symptoms. These problematic foods should be replaced by low-glycaemic foods such as vegetables and proteins.
