What Causes Obesity?

The main symptom is excess body fat, which increases the risk of serious health problems, The mainstay of treatment is lifestyle changes, such as diet and exercise.

obesity

is often caused by eating too much and moving too little. Obesity is a complex health problem that results from a combination of causes and individual factors such as behaviour and genetics. Behaviours can include physical activity, inactivity, dietary patterns, medication use and other exposures.

Other contributing factors include the food and physical activity environment, education and skills, and food marketing and promotion. The balance between calorie intake and energy expenditure determines a person's weight. If a person takes in more calories than he/she burns (metabolises), he/she gains weight (the body stores the excess energy as fat). If a person takes in fewer calories than they metabolise, they will lose weight.

Therefore, the most common causes of obesity are overeating and physical inactivity. Ultimately, body weight is the result of genetics, metabolism, environment, behaviour and culture. Heredity plays a role in obesity, but usually to a much lesser degree than many people might believe. Rather than being the sole cause of obesity, genes appear to increase the risk of weight gain and interact with other environmental risk factors, such as unhealthy diets and inactive lifestyles.

And healthy lifestyles can counteract these genetic effects. People with metabolic syndrome have a much higher risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes compared to those whose weight is in the normal range. The point is that overeating is due to several biological factors, such as genetics and hormones. Some people are simply predisposed to gain weight (see below).

Here are 10 factors that are the main causes of weight gain, obesity and metabolic disease, many of which have nothing to do with willpower. Many sugary, high-fat junk foods stimulate the brain's reward centres (3,. Insulin is a very important hormone that regulates energy storage, among other things. The Western diet promotes insulin resistance in many overweight and obese people.

This raises insulin levels throughout the body, causing energy to be stored in fat cells instead of being available for use (. Although the role of insulin in obesity is controversial, several studies suggest that high levels of insulin play a causal role in the development of obesity (. One of the best ways to reduce insulin is to reduce simple or refined carbohydrates and increase fibre intake (. For example, antidepressants have been linked to modest weight gain over time (1.Other examples are diabetes medication and antipsychotics (12, 1.These drugs do not decrease your willpower.

They alter the function of your body and your brain, reducing metabolic rate or increasing appetite (14, 1.The problem is that leptin does not work as it should in many obese people, because for some reason it cannot cross the blood-brain barrier (1.Excessive fructose consumption can cause insulin resistance and elevated insulin levels. It also does not promote satiety in the same way that glucose does (17, 18, 1.