What should society do about obesity

Creating a food budget and list for your shopping trips can help avoid temptations for unhealthy foods. In addition, prepping meals can allow you to have ready-to-go healthy meals. Preventing obesity plays an important role in good health.

Obesity is associated with a long list of chronic health conditions, many of which become more difficult to treat over time. These conditions include:. By focusing on obesity prevention and lifestyle changes, it may be possible to slow or prevent the development of these diseases. Although the research on obesity prevention strategies is limited in the United States, international studies have been able to suggest some answers. A study from Australia looked at the role of home-based nurses in that country on the weight management of children up to age 2.

The nurses visited babies a total of eight times after birth and encouraged the mothers to incorporate healthy practices. However, a trial in Sweden looked at the effectiveness of a smartphone app to educate young children on healthy eating and physical activity. The researchers discovered no significant differences in BMI and other health markers between the two groups after a year. A review in the International Journal of Obesity looked at 19 different school-based studies to determine what could be effective methods for obesity management.

The researchers found that both dietary changes and reduced TV time resulted in significant weight loss. They also found that family support helped encourage weight loss in children.

Preventing obesity in adults involves regular physical activity, a decrease in saturated fat intake, a decrease in sugar consumption, and an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption. In addition, family and healthcare professional involvement may help to maintain a healthy weight. One review of public health approaches found that there are various ways to influence public policy to encourage methods of obesity prevention: Altering food environments, creating policy-based changes in schools, and supporting medication and other medical strategies are all potential ways to prevent obesity.

However, only some of these methods have proven to be effective, and there are barriers to using these methods. A healthy weight is important in maintaining good health. Taking steps to prevent obesity in your daily life is a good first step. Even small changes, such as eating more vegetables and visiting the gym a few times a week, can help to prevent obesity. Additionally, meeting with a personal trainer or fitness instructor can help you find the physical activities that work best for your body.

Obesity is a condition in which you have too much body fat for your height. Personal preferences determine what, and how much to eat and to exercise, and how important is body shape aesthetics to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. No healthy person chooses to go hungry or be malnourished, but there is an element of choice in becoming obese. These issues are closely linked to socio-economic status, culture, and education. Eating should be enjoyable and potentially controllable, but there are often mitigating factors such as the dependability and affordability of the food supply, peer group and advertising pressures.

The price of fast food sometimes makes it irresistible. In the U. Intake decreases or switches to higher calorie-per-dollar alternatives as the month progresses, when SNAP purchases run out 9.

Parents naturally want to provide for the best growth and development of their children. Parental legal rights are generally overturned to protect a minor if harm is potentially permanent and avoidable such as refusal of life-sustaining treatment on religious grounds Obviously, obesity is serious and can lead to lifelong morbidity.

The gap between chronological and biological age widens as obesity increases. Car seats, seat belts, motorcycle helmets, vaccinations, and education are nearly all universally mandated and followed, especially when freely accessible; high-quality food is not.

Upstream causes, such as inappropriate overfeeding, food to placate crying, high-calorie, low-nutrient so-called addictive foods, and lack of opportunities to exercise safely in school or in home neighborhoods, all challenge the avoidability criterion.

Holding parents answerable for their child's weight implies that they have the parenting skills which, universally are not taught to ensure optimal nutrition quality and quantity and lifestyle for their children.

Infant nutrition begins at minus 9 months and breast-feeding protects against obesity. Throughout childhood, parents are usually well-intentioned and serve, by example, what they eat themselves. Parents have control until the age of about 10, for their children's nutritional choices, exercise and screen time but, by adolescence, the major influencers are peer groups and social media.

In the final analysis, any change in body weight must follow the first law of thermodynamics. The fact that body fat mass is defended emphasizes, according to the fat cell hypothesis, the importance of early feeding practices, and parental responsibility. Obesity is caused by multifactorial bio-psycho-socio-behavioral influences; it may be inherited but it is not necessarily inevitable.

Sometimes, the problem seems genetic because children adopt the eating habits and activity lifestyles of their parents. During evolution Homo sapiens has been programmed to store fat 11 and to be metabolically efficient. Metabolic efficiency actually increases as a result of weight loss and this is one of the main reasons why weight regain occurs after stopping a diet.

Most of our biology as a species has evolved to survive periods of famines with occasional feasts ; but now it is ill equipped to resist the deleterious impact of a sustained surplus of food. Genes have not changed over the past 60 years pace epigenetic influences ; so the toxic, obesogenic environment is the main culprit for the obesity pandemic. Genes cannot be manipulated from a realistic public health or ethical standpoint.

Even if we could attack the biology, say with a drug, this also is not a viable solution. For how long should it be taken—for life? What would be the economic costs?

Would the people most in need of it adhere to such treatment? What about the side-effects? Human history has shown through the sad examples of wars, pestilence and economic deprivations and disparities that obesity cannot occur if food is unavailable. Therefore, we have to attack predominantly the input side of the energy equation through interventions involving the nine levels of responsibility as shown in the Table. The action points listed are not exhaustive, and must be context and time-specific, multi-level and coordinated.

They do show, however, the very many options available in tailoring prevention and intervention programs to a particular setting. Preventing obesity is primarily a public health behavior and literacy issue, empowering parental and personal choices. Recognizing excellence in research, clinical practice, mentoring, and public service. By using Obesity. We use cookies to provide you with a great experience and to help our website run effectively.

Home etyadmin T Research. The Obesity Society is a scientific membership organization. Register Now November , Learn More. Increasing Impact The Obesity Society also helps leaders, investigators and innovators to: Launch and promote needed public health initiatives Translate basic science and clinical trial results into real-world interventions Expand the boundaries of scientific exploration. Contact us for more information. This method allows for greater flexibility and smaller changes, making diets more effective and easier to adhere to.

Community interventions are key to reaching broader and more vulnerable populations. Implementation of more policy-, system- and environmental-wide interventions can transform environments and remove barriers that may hinder healthy decision making. These changes include creating more walkable communities, increasing the affordability and availability of healthy foods, increasing access to health services and implementing wellness programs in schools.

According to the review, another aspect is increasing physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness, which is critical to preventing weight gain. Targeting excessive sedentary behavior, which is separate from physical activity, is also an important focal point in obesity and chronic disease prevention.