The epidemic of obesity

Manufacturers of various nutritional supplements, teas for weight loss, “low-calorie” products and developers of miraculous diets successfully parasitize on the problem of excess weight, playing on the desire of a person to get a miraculous pill and not make any effort. This is a dangerous path that will lead to even greater health problems.

The goal of proper nutrition is not just “to become thin”, but to be healthy, and it is important to make this choice consciously and not hesitate to seek help from a qualified specialist!

The epidemic of obesity is now recognised as one of the most important public health problems facing the world today. Adult obesity is more common globally than under-nutrition.

According to the World Health Organisation, there are around 2,6 billion adults overweight. That equates to 39% (39% of men and 40% of women) of adults aged 18 or over who were overweight, with 13% obese.

The worldwide prevalence of obesity nearly tripled between 1975 and 2016. It is estimated now that most of the world's population live in countries where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight.

If current trends continue, it is estimated that about 3 billion adults will be overweight, over 1 billion affected by obesity, and 177 million adults severely affected by obesity by 2025.

What is overweight and obesity?

Being overweight and obese is the result of the formation of abnormal or excessive body fat that can be harmful to health.

Body mass index (BMI) is a simple ratio of body weight for height, often used to diagnose obesity and overweight in adults. The index is calculated as the ratio of body weight in kilograms to the square of height in meters (kg / m2).

According to WHO, the diagnosis of "overweight" or "obesity" in adults is made in the following cases:

BMI greater than or equal to 25 - overweight;

BMI greater than or equal to 30 - obesity.

BMI is the most convenient measure of the level of obesity and overweight in a population, since it is the same for both sexes and for all age groups of adults. However, BMI should be considered an approximate criterion because it can correspond to different degrees of completeness in different people.

What causes overweight and obesity?

The main cause of obesity and overweight is energy imbalance, in which the caloric content of the diet exceeds the energy requirements of the body. The following trends are noted throughout the world:

increased consumption of foods with high energy density and high fat content;

decreased physical activity due to the increasingly sedentary nature of many activities, changes in travel patterns and increasing urbanization.

high-calorie foods high in fat, sugar and salt - readily available and aggressively advertised. “Fast food is the best example of this. This food category is cheaper and easier to prepare than fresh food, especially for poor people in urban areas. With scarce resources, people buy cheap food, but in the end they are expensive not only for the individual, but also for society as a whole.

health consequences of being overweight and obese

An elevated BMI is one of the main risk factors for noncommunicable diseases such as:

cardiovascular disease (mainly heart disease and stroke), which was the leading cause of death in 2012;

diabetes;

disorders of the musculoskeletal system (especially osteoarthritis - an extremely disabling degenerative joint disease);

some cancers

Obesity significantly increases the likelihood of severe consequences in patients with COVID-19

Weight loss recommendations are widely known and, it would seem, on an individual level, everyone can:

limit the calorie content of your diet by reducing the amount of consumed fats and sugars;

increase your intake of fruits and vegetables, as well as pulses, whole grains and nuts;

engage in regular physical activity (60 minutes a day for children and 2.5 hours a week for adults).

However, these simple rules do not always work and not for everyone. How so?

In practice, it turns out that it is not possible to cope with excess weight, diets do not help, and if they do, they have a short-term effect and the weight returns immediately after leaving the regime of strict restrictions. Moreover, strict restrictions negatively affect the state of health, skin, hair, nails, and the state of internal organs. Diets slow down the metabolism.

Only a few manage to keep themselves constantly in a healthy diet. Most people make great volitional efforts, but still cannot resist temptations. What is the reason? It should be recognized that in the struggle between feeling and logic, feeling always wins. The task of our brain is to give us pleasure and protect us from difficulties and unpleasantness, and when performing this task it does not analyze what is good or bad for us, good or bad. And no matter how much we repeat to ourselves that celery is low in calories and good for our body, we choose not it, but a piece of cake. Overweight people are usually very well informed about what food is good for them and what exercise they need, but they continue to eat fast food and lead a sedentary lifestyle, blaming themselves for inaction and lack of willpower, further exacerbating the problem.

This is because overeating is often not the cause, but the effect, the consequence of a psychological disorder.

If a person is under stress, tension, constant anxiety or depression, then food for him is a factor in reducing stress and a source of positive emotional tone. Simply by depriving him and this source of joy, you can get even more dire consequences for your health.

The root causes of overeating should be sought in the area of ​​psychological discomfort that a person experiences and in the factors causing this discomfort.

Most often, these are destructive attitudes received in childhood as a result of any traumatic events.

RTT - rapid transformational therapy is an effective method for identifying and eliminating such causes.

By immersing a person in a hypnotic state, the specialist helps the client see what events in his past were transformed in his subconscious into attitudes that caused destructive behavior and remove these attitudes, and instead restore a healthy self-image. After such a healing transformation, eating behavior returns to normal and a healthy diet becomes a natural requirement of the body. Losing weight does not cause significant effort, and a healthy lifestyle becomes a conscious choice of a person.