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Fitness Articles |
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on Long Flights Essential
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The
Dangers of Excess Body Fat Most
people's primary motivation for weight management is to improve their
appearance. Equally important, however, are the many other benefits of
proper nutrition and regular exercise. Weight
management through reduction of excess body fat plays a vital role in
maintaining good health and fighting disease. In fact, medical evidence
shows that obesity poses a major threat to health and longevity. (The most
common definition of obesity is more than 25 percent body fat for men and
more than 32 percent for women.) An estimated one in three Americans has
some excess body fat; an estimated 20 percent are obese. Excess
body fat is linked to major physical threats like heart disease, cancer,
and diabetes. (Three out of four Americans die of either heart disease or
cancer each year; according to the National Health and Nutrition
Examination survey, approximately 80 percent of those deaths are
associated with life-style factors, including inactivity.) For
example, if you're obese, it takes more energy for you to breathe because
your heart has to work harder to pump blood to the lungs and to the excess
fat throughout the body. This increased work load can cause your heart to
become enlarged and can result in high blood pressure and life-threatening
erratic heartbeats. Obese
people also tend to have high cholesterol levels, making them more prone
to arteriosclerosis, a narrowing of the arteries by deposits of plaque.
This becomes life-threatening when blood vessels become so narrow or
blocked that vital organs like the brain, heart or kidneys are deprived of
blood. Additionally, the narrowing of the blood vessels forces the heart
to pump harder, and blood pressure rises. High blood pressure itself poses
several health risks, including heart attack, kidney failure, and stroke.
About 25 percent of all heart and blood vessel problems are associated
with obesity. Clinical
studies have found a relationship between excess body fat and the
incidence of cancer. By itself, body fat is thought to be a storage place
for carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals) in both men and women. In
women, excess body fat has been linked to a higher rate of breast and
uterine cancer; in men, the threat comes from colon and prostate cancer. There
is also a delicate balance between blood sugar, body fat, and the hormone
insulin. Excess blood sugar is stored in the liver and other vital organs;
when the organs are "full," the excess blood sugar is converted
to fat. As fat cells themselves become full, they tend to take in less
blood sugar. In some obese people, the pancreas produces more and more
insulin, which the body can't use, to regulate blood sugar levels, and the
whole system becomes overwhelmed. This poor regulation of blood sugar and
insulin results in diabetes, a disease with long-term consequences,
including heart disease, kidney failure, blindness, amputation, and death.
Excess body fat is also linked to gall bladder disease, gastro-intestinal
disease, sexual dysfunction, osteoarthritiis, and stroke. Gaining
Weight Happens to Most of Us The
average American gains at least one pound a year after age 25. Think about
it. If you're like most Americans, by the time you're 50, you're likely to
gain 25 pounds of fat, or more. In addition, your metabolism is also
slowing down, causing your body to work less efficiently at burning the
fat it has. At the same time, if you don't exercise regularly, you lose a
pound of muscle each year. Consequently, people are not only increasing
their body fat stores, increasing their risk of disease, but they're also
losing muscle, increasing the risk of injury, decreasing activity
performance, and further slowing down metabolism. Very
few Americans exercise in any significant way. The President's Council on
Physical Fitness and Sports estimates that only one in five Americans
exercises for the healthy minimum of 20 minutes, three or more days a
week. In fact, the average American gets less than 50 minutes of exercise
per week. Even worse, two out of five Americans are completely sedentary. The
Answer: Healthy Eating and Physical Fitness But
there is hope. Moderate weight loss--of fat, not muscle--and a healthy and
active lifestyle--not dieting--have been found to lower health risks and
medical problems in 90 percent of overweight patients, improving their
heart function, blood pressure, glucose tolerance, sleep disorders, and
cholesterol levels, as well as lowering their requirements for medication,
lowering the incidence and duration of hospitalization, and reducing
post-operative complications eight times less likely to die from cancer
than the unfit, and 53 percent less likely to die from other diseases. Fit
people are also eight times less likely to die from heart disease.
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