Obesity

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Learn to recognise the early warning signs of possible obesity.

Obesity is a medical condition in which being overweight affects one's health. It is a common and significant problem in modern industrialized countries. This of course has led to the inevitable woo-meisters pushing fad diets of every shape and kind, and do-gooders and politicians trying to improve our children's eating habits by such things as banning sodas containing high-fructose corn syrup from school lunchrooms, and revisiting the food groups pyramid tree plate every year to make tweaks in the recommendations.

Contents

[edit] How to recognise obesity

System of body Condition Scoring[1]

Group Score Description
Thin Condition

1

Emaciated - Goat is extremely thin; no fat is covering the spine and hip bone areas. The tail bone and hip bone are quite pronounced and the individual ribs can be seen.

2

Poor - Goat is still fairly thin. There is little fat covering the spine and hip bone regions. The hips, ribs and tail bone are less prominent.

3

Thin - Ribs are still individually identifiable. There is a little fat covering tail head and spine areas.
Borderline Condition

4

Borderline - The spine and the ribs can be individually identified by palpation, but feel rounded rather than sharp. Some fat is over the ribs.
Moderate Condition
(Optimum)

5

Moderate - Goat has a good overall appearance. Fat is over the ribs, hips and tail bone areas and feels spongy to the touch.

6

High Moderate - Firm pressure now needs to be applied to feel spinous processes. Fat is observable and palpable over the ribs and tail head area.

7

Good - Animal appears fleshy and obviously carries considerable amount of fat. Very spongy fat covers ribs and tail head areas. Rounds or pones are beginning to become obvious.
Fat Condition

8

Fat - Goat is very fleshy and over-conditioned. Spinous and transverse processes are almost impossible to palpate. Rounds or pones are obvious.

9

Extremely Fat (Obese) - Goat appears blocky, tail head and hips are buried in fatty tissue. Bone structure is barely viable and is not palpable. Animal may have difficulty in mobility.

[edit] Praise the Lard!

Does being a Baptist make you obese? Or is it linked to voting Republican? Or does being less educated make you obese? Or rather, does being obese make you less educated?

Distribution of obesity in the US      31.0-34.0%     28.0-30.9%     25.0-27.9%     22.0-24.9%     19.0-21.9%
Distribution of religious affiliations in the US
<30% <40% <50% >50%
Catholic
Baptist
Methodist
Lutheran
Mormon
No religion
Distribution of US Senate seats (2006)
Thematic map of population 25 years and over - percent with bachelor's degree or higher: Total population geography by state (2000)


Logistic regression analyses reveal that high levels of religious media practice and affiliation with a Baptist denomination increased the risk of obesity for women, but that a high level of religious consolation reduced the risk of obesity incidence for men.[2]

[edit] Body mass index

The "body mass index" (BMI) is a comparison of height to weight (i.e. if you are 4 feet tall but weigh 140 pounds, you're obese, but if you are 8 feet tall and weigh 140 pounds, than you're severely underweight). While it is a controversial metric for individuals, it was originally devised as a obesity indicator for populations, and it is very good at that.

For individuals, BMI is sometimes misleading. BMI scales poorly with height at its extremes, exaggerating thinness in shorter individuals and fatness in taller ones (For example, Yao Ming — 7'6" and 310 lbs[3] — was "overweight" during his All-Star NBA career), and by definition cannot distinguish between muscle and fat (NFL quarterback and 2010 Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers — 6'2" and 225lbs[4] — has an "overweight" BMI of 28.9, just under the 29.9 cutoff for obese). It's best used in conjunction with other health indicators, such as age, blood pressure, waist circumference, body fat percentage, and so on.

As a population metric, BMI is meant to be an approximation metric for percentage of body fat. There are more direct tests for body fat percentage, based on body density or bioelectric impedance, but these measurements are more difficult to make or require specialized equipment.

Lacking skinfold calipers, a body fat scale, or a massive tank of water, other easy-to-measure metrics, such as waist-to-height ratio[5] or waist-to-hip ratio[6] may be a better gauge to judge health risks of obesity as they correlate more strongly with morbidity and health risks.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. LSU Agricultural Center
  2. Does Religion Increase the Prevalence and Incidence of Obesity in Adulthood? from (Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 45, Issue 2, Pages 269-281)
  3. http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/1722/yao-ming
  4. http://www.nfl.com/player/aaronrodgers/2506363/profile
  5. Obesity Reviews (2012) Mar;13(3):275-86. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-789X.2011.00952.x.
  6. International Journal of Obesity (2004) 28, 1325-1332. So if your abdominal or thoracic epidermis hangs over your genital region you have a serious condition and should seek medical attention, especially if you live in Tehran
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