Obesity

Obesity is a term used to describe an excess of weight and fat in the body. This disease is nowadays more than ever, spreading around the world and affects children and adults from all ethnic groups. In order to confirm that a person is obese, a scale called Body Mass Index (BMI) is often used as it gives different ranges considering the age, weight and height of a person. 

Therefore, when the BMI reaches 40 (or more), the person is considered obese and is very likely to suffer from multiple health problems. 

Obesity can in fact significantly influence people's health and usually deteriorates vessels and heart function. This can result in a stroke where a part of the brain is not irrigated by blood or in a coronary heart disease where the fatty substances accumulate in the coronary arteries and stop the blood flow. Indeed, obesity on its own is not lethal, but it can induce or increase the likelyhood of developping diseases like cancer (breast cancer, bowel cancer etc...)

On the other hand, this disease can also cause chronic diseases such as diabetes type 2 where the intake of glucose is so important that the body doesn't produce enough insulin to regulate it back to its normal levels (between 0.8 - 1.2 g/L). 

However, Obesity doesn't just affect people's life on the long run, but has repercussions on their daily life, as it can unable them to have normal mobility or to be able to participate in any activity that requires energy or movement as they suffer from back and joint pain as well as breathlessness. 

All this can still be avoided in most cases as there is a simple though challenging treatment that consists of a healthy diet with a limited intake of fat and sugars (carbohydrates). This treatment can only work if the cause of the disease is environmental meaning that it is mostly due to lack of activty (sedentary) and an unhealthy diet. For other cases, where the gentic inheritance of certain gene increases the chance of becoming obese, this treatment can sometimes be useless .