The
dangers of excess fat
By Chad
Tackett (Sincere thanks to Chad for letting me reprint this
article here!)
Most people's
primary motivation for weight management is to improve their
appearance. Equally important, however, are the many other
benefits of proper nutrition and regular exercise.
Weight management through reduction of excess body fat plays
a vital role in maintaining good health and fighting
disease.
In fact, medical evidence shows that obesity poses
a major threat to health and longevity. (The most common
definition of obesity is more than 25 percent body fat for
men and more than 32 percent for women.)
An estimated one in
three Americans has some excess body fat; an estimated 20
percent are obese.
Excess body fat is linked to major physical threats like
heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. (Three out of four
Americans die of either heart disease or cancer each year;
according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination
survey, approximately 80 percent of those deaths are
associated with life-style factors, including inactivity.)
For example, if you're obese, it takes more energy for you
to breathe because your heart has to work harder to pump
blood to the lungs and to the excess fat throughout the
body. This increased work load can cause your heart to
become enlarged and can result in high blood pressure and
life-threatening erratic heartbeats.
Obese people also tend to have high cholesterol levels,
making them more prone to arteriosclerosis, a narrowing of
the arteries by deposits of plaque.
This becomes
life-threatening when blood vessels become so narrow or
blocked that vital organs like the brain, heart or kidneys
are deprived of blood. Additionally, the narrowing of the
blood vessels forces the heart to pump harder, and blood
pressure rises.
High blood pressure itself poses several
health risks, including heart attack, kidney failure, and
stroke. About 25 percent of all heart and blood vessel
problems are associated with obesity.
Clinical studies have found a relationship between excess
body fat and the incidence of cancer. By itself, body fat is
thought to be a storage place for carcinogens
(cancer-causing chemicals) in both men and women. In women,
excess body fat has been linked to a higher rate of breast
and uterine cancer; in men, the threat comes from colon and
prostate cancer.
There is also a delicate balance between blood sugar, body
fat, and the hormone insulin. Excess blood sugar is stored
in the liver and other vital organs; when the organs are
"full," the excess blood sugar is converted to
fat.
As fat cells themselves become full, they tend to take
in less blood sugar. In some obese people, the pancreas
produces more and more insulin, which the body can't use, to
regulate blood sugar levels, and the whole system becomes
overwhelmed.
This poor regulation of blood sugar and insulin
results in diabetes, a disease with long-term consequences,
including heart disease, kidney failure, blindness,
amputation, and death. Excess body fat is also linked to
gall bladder disease, gastro-intestinal disease, sexual
dysfunction, osteoarthritiis, and stroke.
The good news is that reducing body fat reduces the risk of
disease. At the University of Pittsburgh, researchers
studied 159 people as they followed a weight management
program. The subjects were under age 45 and 30-70 pounds
overweight.
Those subjects who were able to shed just 10-15
percent of their weight and keep it off during the 18-month
study showed significant improvement in HDL cholesterol and
triglyceride levels, waist-to-hip ratio, and blood pressure.
In fact, according to the New England Journal of Medicine,
body fat reduction is a more powerful modulator of cardiac
structure than drug therapy.
For people with a family history of heart disease, an active
lifestyle can slow or stop the process for all but those
with serious genetic disorders.
Studies by Dean Ornish, MD,
have shown that a comprehensive intervention program that
includes regular physical activity, a low-fat diet and a
stress reduction program can even reverse the heart disease
process.
Evidence also shows that an active lifestyle and its help in
reducing body fat is associated with a reduced risk for some
types of cancers: prostate for men, breast and uterine
cancers for women.
In addition, regular physical activity and a low-fat diet
are successful in treating non-insulin dependent diabetes (NIDDM);
for some patients, it has reduced or eliminated the need for
insulin substitutes. In general, regularly active adults
have 42 percent lower risk of developing NIDDM.
The average American gains at least one pound a year after
age 25. Think about it. If you're like most Americans, by
the time you're 50, you're likely to gain 25 pounds of fat,
or more.
In addition, your metabolism is also slowing down,
causing your body to work less efficiently at burning the
fat it has. At the same time, if you don't exercise
regularly, you lose a pound of muscle each year.
Consequently, people are not only increasing their body fat
stores, increasing their risk of disease, but they're also
losing muscle, increasing the risk of injury, decreasing
activity performance, and further slowing down metabolism.
Very few Americans exercise in any significant way. The
President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports estimates
that only one in five Americans exercises for the healthy
minimum of 20 minutes, three or more days a week. In fact,
the average American gets less than 50 minutes of exercise
per week. Even worse, two out of five Americans are
completely sedentary.
But there is hope. Moderate weight loss of fat, not
muscle--and a healthy and active lifestyle--not
dieting--have been found to lower health risks and medical
problems in 90 percent of overweight patients, improving
their heart function, blood pressure, glucose tolerance,
sleep disorders, and cholesterol levels, as well as lowering
their requirements for medication, lowering the incidence
and duration of hospitalization, and reducing post-operative
complications eight times less likely to die from cancer
than the unfit, and 53 percent less likely to die from other
diseases. Fit people are also eight times less likely to die
from heart disease.
So, are you willing to be patient and make gradual changes
in your life that will lead to a healthier, happier you?
Once you have made the decision to go forward and accept
change, the hard part is over.
Sure, there is plenty of work
to be done, but it really doesn't matter how long this new
process takes. If you allow changes to take place over a
reasonable period of time, your body will adjust comfortably, and you
will be more likely to maintain the healthy lifestyle
permanently.
When you begin achieving improvements in energy and physical
and psychological performance, the fun and excitement you
experience will make the change well worth the effort.
Action creates motivation! Good luck: I hope you enjoy all
the wonderful benefits of a safe and effective weight
management program.
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provides you with the right information, tools and resources
to lose and control your weight while eating what you want
to eat, when you want and as much as you want and most
importantly, automating your weight management task at a
subconscious level so you don't have to consciously worry
about it.
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