Welcome to Obese no More

Welcome to Obesenomore.org

There is a world epidemic of obesity, estimated to encompass 1.7 billion people. 20% of this population is known to be morbidly obese.
According to the Worldwatch Institute, the number of overweight people is approximately equal to the number of underweight people.
The Indian national health survey of 1998-99 found six percent of women in urban India, aged between 15 to 49 years old, to be obese and 18 percent overweight.
Currently above 250 genes, markers and chromosomal regions are linked with obesity phenotypes.
The caloric value of the food offered by restaurants and fast food outlets for one meal often exceeds a person’s caloric needs for the entire day.
Even modest degrees of overweight have a significant adverse effect on the outcome of pregnancy.
The incidence of large-for-gestational-age infants in obese mothers is higher than in lean mothers.
Non smoking overweight men and women lose 3.1 and 3.3 years of life respectively compared to normal weight non smokers.
Weight fluctuations have worse impact on the risk of death than weight stability.
The risk of mortality associated with obesity is greater for younger people as compared to older people.

Cardiovascular

Obesity alone accounts for 78% and 65% of essential hypertension in men and women respectively.
The occurrence of myocardial infarction, hypertension and congestive heart failure are all significantly higher among obese people than among people with normal weight.
After adjustment for age and smoking, the risk of a fatal or non-fatal myocardial infarction among women with a BMI >29 is 3 times that of lean women.
There is a 2-fold increase in the risk of coronary heart disease in women with a BMI of 25-28.9 and 3.6 for a BMI of 29 or more.
The risk of coronary heart diseases in males increases by 38% and 86% with a 10% and 20% increase in weight respectively.
With every 1 kg of weight loss, there is a corresponding reduction by about 1% in total cholesterol and LDL and a rise by 1% in HDL and a 3% decrease in triglycerides.

Metabolic Syndrome

Central adiposity is also more closely associated with the development of metabolic syndrome than the absolute degree of fatness.
Researchers have observed that increased visceral adipocyte in Asian Indians is associated with increased generalized obesity, which is not perceptible from their non-obese BMI. This often results in prevalence of diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease.

Diabetes

A population of 19 million in India is already affected by diabetes and the figure is expected to go up to a whopping 57 million by the 2005, a World Health Organisation (WHO) study indicated.
The prevalence of diabetes increases proportionately with the severity of obesity, duration of obesity, and age.
The risk of DM2 in patients with a BMI 25.0 kg/m2 is three times higher than in the general population, and the risk increases proportionally with increasing BMI.
Studies have reported that about 75% of type 2 diabetics are overweight.
The risk for Diabetes rises linearly above a BMI of 22 in case of females with a 5-fold increased risk at a BMI of 25, a 28-fold risk at a BMI of 30, and a 93-fold higher risk above a BMI of 35.
Even with a gain of 8-10.9 kgs, the risk of diabetes increases 2.7-fold in comparison to those who maintain stable weight.
Diabetes related mortality can be reduced by 30-40% by losing nine kilograms of weight.
Glycosylated Hemoglobin can be reduced by 7% and fasting blood glucose by 15% with a 5% weight loss.
Normalization in metabolic control and improvements in life expectancy can be seen with a weight loss of 10-20% in weight in Type 2 diabetics.
Central distribution of fat as reflected by waist circumference above 100 cm independently increases the risk of diabetes by 3.5 fold even after controlling for BMI in both the genders.

Pulmonary

Morbid obesity (MO) can be associated with changes in respiratory function. Among others, they are the obesity hypoventilation syndrome (OHS) and the obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (SAS), which may occur either independently or in combination.

Digestive Diseases

In the clinically severe obese with BMI exceeding 40, only 2% have normal livers, 56% show fatty infiltration alone, whereas 42% have fatty infiltration associated with fibrosis or cirrhosis.

Cancer

Colorectal cancer was the principal site of excess cancer mortality in obese males, whereas in females cancer of the gallbladder and biliary passages was more prominent.
In women aged 60-69 years with a BMI of 25-29 kg/m2 the risk of endometrial cancer is more than double and increases 5.4-fold in those with BMI of more than 30 kg/m2.
An intentional weight loss of even 0.5-9.0 kg was associated with a decrease of 40-50% in mortality from obesity related cancers

Childhood Obesity

A child who is obese after 6 years of age, has a 50% probability of obesity during adult years; and the risks are significantly higher if either parent is obese.
Adult obesity stemming from childhood obesity is known to be even more severe.
It has been estimated that children consume 20 - 25% of their daily energy while television viewing and this ‘eating while watching television is a potential mechanism linking television viewing to obesity.
A study conducted by the Nutrition Foundation of India on over 4000 children aged 4-18 years in a public school in Delhi, showed that the incidence of overweight reached its peak in boys by 12-14 years and in girls by 9-11 years whereas the incidence of obesity reached its peak between 6-8 years in both boys and girls