Two thirds of U.S. adults are now overweight and one third
are obese, making normal size people an actual minority. Americans have so
ballooned in size, government safety regulators worry that airline seats and
belts won't
restrain today's men who average 194 pounds and women who average 165
pounds, in a crash.
Not everyone agrees that obesity is always a health
problem. You can be overweight and still have normal blood pressure, blood
sugar, HDL cholesterol and other metabolic markers if you exercise, say some,
pointing to U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin who hiked the Grand Canyon in 2010
despite her extra poundage.
But others say fitness and exercise will not reverse the
health effects of obesity. For example, the British medical journal The
Lancet recently reported that rising
obesity in the U.K. will cause an extra
half a million cases of heart disease, 700,000 cases of diabetes and
130,000 of cancer by 2030. And the overweight and obese are 80 percent more
likely to develop dementia writes Kerry
Trueman on AlterNet.
And there other obesity "negatives." The obese are
less likely to be employed, earn less than people of normal weight and
"have more days of absence from work, a lower productivity on the job and
a greater access to disability benefits," reports the Paris-based policy
group Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Obesity raises Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance
costs and affects national security, writes David Gratzer, M.D., on KevinMD.com,
"since thousands of recruits are turned away from military service
because of failed physicals and poor overall health." It also shortens
"the lifespan of millions of decent Americans who deserve better," he
writes.
Yet eating too much
and exercising too little, considered the root of obesity, are not the only
probable culprits. Here are some other factors that are often overlooked.
Depression and Depression Drugs
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