OBESITY AND EATING DISORDERS INTRODUCTION

There is a classification about eating disorders in the American Medical Association (AMA), but obesity is not in it. Eating disorders are described as illnesses that are characterized by irregular eating habits and severe distress or concern about body weight or shape.

A.M.A. has recognized that being overweight or obese is a chronic disease and not simply due to poor self-control or a lack of will power. But A.M.A. has no legal-scientific worldwide authority to make this kind of decision.

Being a disease and/or an eating disorder has to be taken seriously, by the patients, their relatives and the medical doctors taking care of them. Obesity leads millions of people around the world to unwanted weight gain, and the roles that excess weight and fat maldistribution play in contributing to chronic diseases such as

• Heart Disease

• Diabetes,

• Dyslipidemia,

• Liver problems

• Osteomuscular diseases,

• Some types of cancer.

AVOID BASHING

Bashing overweight patient sufferers is not only ignorant but cruel. That is not the proper way to treat another human being.

Usually, any person who bullies another one about any issue, it’s because of fear and ignorance. In the health campaign against fat, we should avoid bashing obesity and idealizing thinness, which only fosters the self-destructive thought processes that characterizes eating disorders from anorexia to obesity.

Anorexics with jutting collarbones think they’re fat. Binge-eaters often think, after eating too much, that they’ve already done the damage so they might as well keep eating.

Apparently, people who overeat are not concerned about body weight or shape. Oh, but they are, they are just reacting in an opposite way to those who deprive themselves from food, like anorexic patients.

Severe obese people feel a lot of guilt after eating enormous amounts of food. They know they are hurting themselves but «there is something that doesn’t let me stop and all I want is to continue eating everything I see»-patients say often.

PREVENTION

Being overweight is the result of over-eating, of an obsession and addiction to eating big and low quality amounts of food. Tackling this problem when it starts is the best way to prevent morbid obesity,  which causes many medical problems and unhappiness to the ones suffering from it.

ADULT BODY MASS INDEX (BMI)

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. A high BMI can be an indicator of high body fatness.

Adult Body Mass Index (BMI)
Body Mass Index (BMI) is a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. A high BMI can be an indicator of high body fatness.

• If your BMI is less than 18.5, it falls within the underweight range.

• If your BMI is 18.5 to <25, it falls within the normal.

• If your BMI is 25.0 to <30, it falls within the overweight range.

• If your BMI is 30.0 or higher, it falls within the obese range.

Obesity is frequently subdivided into categories:

• Class 1: BMI of 30 to < 35

• Class 2: BMI of 35 to < 40

• Class 3: BMI of 40 or higher. Class 3 obesity is sometimes categorized as “extreme” or “severe” obesity.

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