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On March 4th we celebrate the World Day for the fight against obesity. It is an important day, given that overweight and obesity are conditions to be fought to maintain well-being, both through adequate lifestyles and through targeted surgical interventions in the most serious forms with an important increase in the Body Mass Index, the BMI.
What matters, in any case, is focus on prevention, especially for young people and children, counteracting weight gains as soon as possible. according to a research published in Plos Medicine, in fact, the time factor is also important: those who have to “carry” a burden of excessive weight for longer have a greater risk of developing metabolic problems and diabetes than those who have a weight within the norm and to those who have managed to bring their weight back to normal in a short time.
Attention especially to young people
In Italy, as in many countries around the world, it is above all to worry the tendency to weight gain already in pediatric age and during adolescence: this trend, if not adequately countered, could lead in the future to an exponential increase in the risk for the development of diabetes, metabolic problems and other situations that put the heart and blood vessels at risk, such as hypertension.
This is the disturbing summary that emerges from the study coordinated by Tom Norris of Loughborough University in the United Kingdom. The research highlights two different aspects of great importance: the first is that the more the onset of obesity is postponed, the greater the chances of reducing the risk of cardiovascular and metabolic problems, the second is linked to the time factor. .
If you reduce the number of years spent with a too high and pathological BMI, the risk of developing diabetes also decreases. To reach this conclusion, the British experts looked at data from three large population databases, called the National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD), the National Child Development Study (NCDS) and 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70). .
The survey examined more than 20,000 people of both sexes, regularly checking their body mass index over the course of their lives and, around the age of 40-50, with an assessment of glycated hemoglobin (a fundamental index for identifying the diabetes) and cholesterol, as well as blood pressure. The results are truly impressive.
The more obesity is maintained over time, the more the parameters underlying the problems of metabolism deteriorate, in particular based on the measurements of glycated hemoglobin, and cardiovascular health. the same trend was seen for blood pressure, on average higher in the maximum and minimum values in those who had Body Mass Index values (the value is given by the weight expressed in kilos divided by the square of the height expressed in meters) above 30.
We learn to give the “right” to the body
Healthy eating and lots of physical activity. these are the two simple recipes to keep weight under control. let’s not forget that energy needs are defined on the basis of caloric income of food and the “outputs” related to energy production.
In summary, this condition is influenced by the basal requirement, that is the amount of energy necessary for the maintenance of life in conditions of rest (in the adult it is about 40 calories per square meter of surface per hour, in the woman it is lower than about 10 percent), thermoregulation (mainly depends on the temperature, so the hotter it is, the less calories are consumed), the consumption needs necessary to eat and physical activity. Keeping weight under control means maintaining health, let’s not forget that. And let’s talk to the doctor.
A day for information and knowledge
According to Diego Foschi, President of SICOB, the Italian Society of Obesity Surgery and Metabolic Diseases, “the purpose of World Obesity Day is to attract the attention of the social body, of people suffering from obesity, of the political world, of the media and of professionals on the need to proceed swiftly towards a truly effective prevention and treatment process. In Italy we have six million obese people (10% of the population) and their number is destined to grow according to the entry of adolescents with childhood obesity, an affection for which we have the second position in Europe.
Obesity causes a serious reduction in the quality of life and makes the appearance of other diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular diseases more frequent and makes us more susceptible to infections and their complications, including Covid- 19.
Yet the greatest obstacles to the fight against obesity are still many and are represented ignorance of the “scientific” definition of the disease, from the social stigma, from the prejudice that paints the obese not as a sick person but as a self-destructive hedonist, from the failure to recognize obesity as a disease to be treated in the context of essential levels of assistance, from the scarcity of networks dedicated to taking load of patients. SICOB will always fight against these prejudices, so that patients and the pathology have the right attention. Obesity was the first epidemic of the new millennium, let’s not forget it! ”.
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