Obesity in most of the developed world is rapidly increasing. It affects the individuals in terms of their image and also most importantly their health and quality of life. In addition, it also affects the society as a whole in terms of heath costs and loss in productivity and lost production due to absenteeism from work.
The causes of obesity are complex by nature. This is because it is caused by genetics, psychological factors, life style factors, family environment, attitudes and eating habits.
In addition, the causes vary from one individual to another. As mentioned above the variety of factors and its uniqueness for a given individual there is no general solution to the problem. However, as this problem is becoming a serious issue in many countries it is essential to understand the issue and have programs developed based on through research in this area.
According to experts in this field given the increase in obesity epidemic in most countries in the past decade they stress the role of environment in the development of obesity and the health problem it causes. In their view, the genetic factors play a part in contributing to obesity but it alone will not explain the current increase in obesity in all groups of people and age groups including children. That is taking medical treatment or treating as a diseases is not enough and blaming it for genetic factors will not be able to solve this problem and it is too simplistic and in reality obesity is a complex issue and environmental factors and its interaction with individuals has to be considered to develop programs to control this important epidemic in most of the countries.
The nutritionists and other experts in this field have found that family factors, lifestyle factors, eating habits, exercise, attitude, and stress control play a crucial role in obesity with genetic factors. They insist that these factors have to be considered as these factors play a crucial role in obesity development and developing programs and educational campaigns.
Obesity can cause heart attack, diabetics and other serious illness, which will affect the quality of life of severe obese people. It also will affect self-esteem and self- image and there fore their confidence and psychological state of mind and also can cause depression in some people. That is obesity is a health issue as well as a mental issue for many people.
The possible solution to obesity are active life style, good eating habits, self control, stress management, public programs that encourage good family relationships and eating habits in adults and children, control of eating junk food, children not exposed too much to food advertisement, good shopping habits as well as sufficient exercise and physical activity and reducing the time watching television particularly by children. If these are practiced and incentives given to practice these ways of life patterns then the obesity problem can be effectively managed even though in actual practice it is not easy to implement all these changes in the behavior of many people. However sustained efforts definitely will reap rewards at least in the medium to long term.
There no doubt environment play an important role in contributing to obesity and it is the most important cause for the current increase in obesity and environmental factors have to change to control this obesity epidemic most particularly in the advanced developed countries.
