There is more to the kilos than just calories and a sedentary lifestyle

The world has more obese people today than any other time in history, and the number is increasing.

Worldwide, obesity has more than doubled since 1980. There are more than 1.5 billion adults who are overweight.

Of these, more than 200 million men and nearly 300 million women are overweight. Approximately 43 million children under the age of five are obese.

Overweight adults and children are likely to be traumatised because of being stigmatised as chubby, plump, or fat.

The media’s emphasis on skinny models, TV presenters, and celebrities does not help the situation because this implies that plus-size people are to blame for their plight.

But, what causes obesity?

The fundamental cause of weight increase is imbalance between energy consumed and energy expended.

This comes about due to increased intake of energy-dense foods that are high in fat and sugars but low in vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients, and a decrease in physical activity due to the increasingly sedentary nature of the modern lifestyle.

But scientific developments suggest that some overweight people may have been unfairly accused of being lazy, not exercising enough, and having bad eating habits: there are other reasons for that extra weight.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), being overweight and obese refers to abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health.

The Body Mass Index (BMI) is a simple parameter used to determine how well you are doing in the calories department.

BMI is defined as a person’s weight in kilogrammes (kg) divided by the square of the person’s height in metres (m). Therefore the formula for BMI is kg/m2.

Generally, a BMI greater than or equal to 25 is graded as overweight while one greater than or equal to 30 is in the range of obesity.

These values should be considered as a rough guide as there are different levels of “fatness”.

A high BMI is a major risk factor for several modern illnesses such as cardiovascular disease (mainly heart disease and stroke), diabetes, and some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon).

Overweight and obesity are the fifth leading risk for deaths globally. At least 2.8 million adults die each year as a result of being overweight or obese.

The energy imbalance that is blamed for obesity is based on the first law of thermodynamics.

This rule, popularly known as the law of conservation of energy, states that “energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can be transformed from one form to another”.

Therefore, if you drink half-a-litre of beer, the body has two options; to either use all of it or pass all of it out, or pass some out and store the rest in the body to be used later.

All foods follow the same chain; a portion is used in the body and another converted into fat or expelled.

The big two

The law of conservation of energy dictates that the equation must balance; the energy consumed in form of food must equal what is used up in the body and the expelled waste.

Weight gain is mostly blamed on the “big two” — first, eating excess calories and, second, lack of physical exercise to convert the excess calories into another form of energy.

Ideally, men should take in approximately 2,500 kilocalories while women should consume 2,000 kilocalories a day.

When one eats more, the excess calories have to be expelled, otherwise they are deposited in the body as fat and manifest as overweight.

However, the first law of thermodynamics does not tell us how other factors in the body such as genes, gender, age, and ethnicity affect the energy balance equation.

For example, it does not tell us why body fat is deposited in different parts of the body for women and men.

It is also mum on why some ethnic groups tend to be more prone to weight problems than others.

The energy balance school of thought ignores other factors that could also be responsible for expanding waist lines.

No doubt, excess calories and lack of physical exercise are the salient factors that contribute to weight gain. However, evidence to their contributory role is circumstantial.

For example, those two factors cannot explain why people who take psychotropic medications such as antidepressants and mood stabilisers or even steroid hormones and contraceptives gain weight. This is despite the fact that most of these medications are calorie-free.

Most people who follow a regular exercise regime and control their calorie intake lose weight.

However, there are others who watch their calories and exercise, but feel helpless and guilty when they find that they are still piling on kilos.

There must be other factors that contribute to this quandary of weight gain than just excess calories and reduced physical exercise.

Let us take the less travelled road and look at some unacknowledged factors that I believe are leading to the increasing population of overweight people worldwide.

The evidence could be circumstantial, but there is strong scientific evidence to link these factors to overall weight increase over time.

Dr Arimi is a nutritional expert living in Ireland. His website is http://www.arimifoods.com