Weight Loss Information |
Is Obesity a Disease? And What Should Be Done About It?
You have noticed your obese friend suddenly slimmer. You want to know what she's doing, but you don't want surgery or side effects. My Miami patient Marcia weighed 303 pounds. She noticed newly trim, formerly 325 pound Kim walking the golf course, and asked her how she'd lost weight. Marcia now weighs 190, has quit smoking and a year later, has gained control. Labeling Marcia and Kim as diseased only makes them victims, and medicalizes their problems. Deciding obesity is a disease stigmatizes the obese, as if they didn't feel enough unwanted attention already. The "disease" label is about money, not health. It's about getting insurers, including Medicare, to pay for remedies. It's about creating a so-called "fat tax." It's about tariffs on fast food sales and food production. And it's about promoting expensive lifestyle drugs, still being tested. Many doctors do not recommend any obesity drugs, and are worried about their side effects. Some people think that fat is in their genes. And genes are everything-for infants. For people over age 50, however, 80% of your health is your choices. What you eat changes the proteins your genes make, and help your body protect itself against actual diseases to which you're susceptible, such as heart disease and cancer. Knowing what's in what you eat and finding nutrient-rich, calorie-lean food are personal responsibilities. The science of obesity is new. Olympian Maurice Greene (5'9" 176#) is overweight, because his Body Mass Index is over 25 kg/m2. Although muscle weighs more than fat, he would be labeled "overweight": an insurance risk. Lenders, employers and insurers may use that diagnosis against you unfairly. Weight distribution and body fat-not pounds alone--should be measured before labeling people. Neither Marcia nor Kim thought they had a disease when they came to see me. They felt well. Actually, very few obese patients feel ill. Yet they have-and now control-high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes and osteoarthritis. They do it with their personal choices, including individualized diets, self-monitoring, accountability, and structured, step-by-step fitness. Understanding the risk of overweight comes one person at a time. Obesity is not a disease of deranged genes, willpower or pseudoscience. Obesity is a problem of planning. That's what my patients Marcia and Kim needed. You need a plan-not a label--to succeed. John La Puma M.D. is co-author of the NY Times bestselling RealAge Diet and Cooking the RealAge Way, with Dr. Michael Roizen. His published recipes are online, and he is Medical Director of CHEF Clinic (http://www.drjohnlapuma.com), a unique, referral-based, nutrition-only national medical practice with patients nationwide who want to lose weight no matter what it takes. He is also an Executive Member at Costco.
MORE RESOURCES: Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting |
RELATED ARTICLES
2 Ways To Start Burning More Calories Today 1. Start Exercising first thing in the morning. Alternatives When Considering Liposuction One alternative method to traditional and tumescent liposuction is mesotherapy. Mesotherapy involves a series of injections of varying ingredients. Learn The Basics Of Weight Loss Have you been surfing the web trying to find a way to lose weight? Are you looking for the perfect solution to your weight loss desires? If you have done much surfing, I'm sure you've found thousands of sites offering to provide you with the BEST weight loss solution. Are they all the BEST? Do they all work wonders? Will you never have to worry about weight loss again?Before you spend lots of hard earned cash on weight loss pills and potents, and hours and hours trying to find the perfect solution to your needs? Let's examine some basic facts about why we gain weight and why we lose weight. Weight Loss Myths Exposed As a weight loss coach I speak will people regularly about their view and beliefs surrounding food and nutrition. It probably won't come as a surprise to hear there is a great deal of confusion around nutrition. Ghost of Binge Past Holidays and special events should be a time of great joy, but dieters customarily imagine these occasions with dread and horror. Why? Because celebrations are not celebrations without lots of high-calorie, tempting foods. How To Avoid Gaining the Holiday 7 As the holidays approach, a frequent question from my clients and subscribers is "How can I avoid gaining weight during the holidays"? Their concern is legitimate. The average American adult gains seven pounds of fat between Thanksgiving and New Years Day. Healing Food Addiction Hannah was distressed that, with all the inner work she had done on herself, she still found herself binge eating."There are times when I just can't stop eating. Diet and Weightloss -- Start Your New Year Off Right! FINDING THE PERFECT DIETArriving at the Perfect Diet is no quick, simple task in today's world of fast-paced living. For example, there are several different educational food pyramid plans. Where Diets Go Wrong When we discover that we are heavier than we want to be, we have a natural invlination to eat less food. We may skip lunch or eat only a tiny amount of our dinner in the hope that if we eat less our body will burn off some of its fat. Treadmill Weight Loss Tips These treadmill weight loss tips are a great way to help you shed a few pounds and shape up. A treadmill is designed for the most natural form of exercise which is walking. Hoodia- Modern Zeal of Ancient San The long marginalized San tribe of South Africa has suddenly come to the time light. An ancient practice of chewing a plant to ward of hunger has given birth to the modern charisma called P57. Weight Loss Tip - The Importance of Lowering Your Body-Fat! When you hear a doctor or a personal trainer say, "Your body fat is too high, or you are borderline obese, what do you think? Does it matter to you? Does it motivate you to lose weight? Or are the numbers on the scale more important?Most people will always have a love - hate relationship with the scale in their bathroom. However, with the dramatic increase in diabetes and obesity cases in America the importance of keeping your overall body fat down becomes the most important issue to ones health. Fighting Obesity - My Pyramid Dietary Guidelines If you are fighting the battle of the bulge (overweight and obesity) unsuccessfully, here is good help at hand. You no longer have to depend on unsubstantiated claims and vested commercial weight loss sites for your fight against obesity. Take Control of Your Metabolism:Quick Tips for Increased Muscle Tone, Faster Fat Burning, and Energy So many people are talking about how slow their metabolism is and why they need to start taking the latest diet supplement scam yet they don't even understand how the human metabolism works. So before I even go into how to speed yours up, I want to first go over some of the basics. Sale Offers, Ephedra, and Weight Loss... Are You A TARGET? Today, Ephedra is an herb of controversy. It contains ephedrine, a stimulant alkaloid used in many weight loss medicines. Exposed: The 95% Dieting Lie Thats Keeping You Fat Repeat a lie often enough and people take it as truth. This describes the plight of the hackneyed statistic that 95% of all diets fail. No Excuse on Getting in Shape America is getting more obese every year. Even our children are becoming dangerously obese, even though we are more self conscious over our appearance. The Truth About Low Carb Dieting Every day you walk down the street it is becoming more and more apparent that the average person is becoming larger and this trend has escalated over recent years. Why are they getting fatter? Here are some reasons. Ephedra Is Back - But Is It Safe? It's been called the world's oldest medicine, the miracle fat burner, and is known in some parts of the U.S. Ultimate Weight loss: Ephedra is it Good or Bad? I have had some e-mails come in and everyone is asking "is ephedra is safe or not?".Well I wont reply to that question. |
home | site map | contact us |