Obesity - Part One

Over half of the population is currently either overweight or obese - it has been estimated that 70% of men and 63% of women are either overweight or obese. Even more alarming is the number of obese children- obesity in two to four year old children has almost doubled, from 5% to 9% from 1989-1999. If current trends continue, conservative estimates are that at least one-third of adults, one-fifth of boys and one-third of girls will be obese by 2020.

     The simplest definition of obesity is an excessive amount of body fat. It must be distinguished from overweight, which refers to an excess of body weight relative to height. A muscular athlete may be overweight, yet have a very low body-fat percentage. With this in mind, it is obvious that using body weight alone as an index of obesity is not entirely accurate. Nevertheless, obesity is classically identified as weighing more than twenty percent over the average desirable weight for a given height.

    There are basically two areas of focus in trying to understand what causes obesity; psychological factors and physiological factors.

     Psychological factors include watching too much television. It has been demonstrated that watching too much television is linked to the onset of obesity, and there is a dose related effect (i.e. the more television one watches, the greater the degree of obesity) In addition to leading to childhood obesity, television viewing contributes to excess weight in adults. In one study of 4,771 adult women it was found that women watching more than three hours of television per day are more likely to become obese than women who watched less than one hour of television per day.

    A considerate body of scientific evidence demonstrates that brain serotonin levels have a major influence on eating behavior. When the brain levels of serotonin are low, then the brain senses that it is starving, so it stimulates the appetite control centers in a powerful way. This stimulation results in a preference for carbohydrates.

    Cravings for carbohydrates (as well as fat) due to low serotonin levels can be mild or quite severe. They may range in severity from a desire to nibble on a piece of bread to uncontrollable binging.

    The set point theory: The set point is the weight that a body tries to maintain by regulating the amount of food and calories consumed. Research with animals and humans has indicated that each person has a programmed ‘set point’ weight. The body’s individual fat cells control this set point.

    When these fat cells become smaller, they send a powerful message to the brain to eat. Since the overweight or obese individual often has both more and larger fat cells, the result can be an overpowering urge to eat.

    The existence of this set point may also explain why most diets don’t work. While the overweight or obese individual can fight off the impulse to eat for a time, eventually the signal becomes too strong to ignore. This can lead to yo-yo dieting and loss of confidence in the person’s ability to lose weight.

    This subject of obesity and excess weight is very important for one’s health and well-being, since excess weight puts extra strain on the body’s vital organs, with increased mortality resulting. Next time we will again look at this subject and what we can do to regain our optimum weight.

David Foley

MRCHM, MNIMH

Medical Herbalist