Causes of Obesity

Obesity is a condition arising from an interplay of your inherited genetic predisposition to gain weight, and adverse environmental factors leading to a bigger you.

You are overweight because your calorie intake exceeds the amount of calories you need for daily activities and maintaining good health. Over time, this is piled on as excess fat with potentially disastrous health consequences.

If you must conquer obesity, you must address this imbalance.

Main Causes of Obesity

These are:

1. Your lifestyle habits

2. Your genetic predisposition

3. Medications you take and some inherited medical conditions

While other factors does contribute to whether you become obese or not, reducing the amount of food you eat, or in some cases the type of food (selecting less fatty healthier alternatives), and then engage in more activities is certain to help you reduce weight.

Get it right. Obesity is caused, NOT ONLY because of how much you eat. It is also because, you are NOT engaging in ENOUGH EXERCISE to BURN the excess calorie you take in.

We shall now list ten (10) top factors that contribute to obesity. They include:

1. Dietary factors
2. Environmental factors
3. Psychological factors
4. Parental factor
5. Cultural Factors
6. Metabolic
7. Age
8. Medications you may be taking
9. Some underlying medical conditions you have (you might not even know you have them!)
10. Excessive Alcohol intake and smoking cessation

A number of these factors interact to produce obesity. This is a more realist and indeed holistic view of what causes obesity.

Lifestyle habits

I myself, am a veteran participant in the sedentary type of lifestyle; some call us "couch potatoes".

I can vouch for the fact that without some type of exercise it will be very hard for you to lose weight.

Genetics Factors

You may not be aware that obesity tends to run in families. Families usually share the same diet and habits that contribute to being obese. This heredity is hard to break lose from, but if you really want to change your lifestyle it can be done.

Many studies show people who get 20 to 30 minutes of exercise most days are less likely to be obese.

Metabolic Factors

This term refers to the rate at which your body uses food. If your metabolism tends to be slow, you are more likely to store excess calories in the form of fat. A slow metabolism means you probably need to work harder at losing weight.

However, your efforts may ultimately increase your metabolic rate. Muscle burns more calories than fat, even at rest. So reducing fat and building muscle through weight-bearing exercise can help you burn calories more efficiently.

Medicinal Factors

Some people are not aware that many of the regular medicines enhance the opportunity for you to gain weight. Have you read the disclosure about your prescription given to you by the pharmacist?

Most of the meds I currently take have that caution on the disclosure. This is one of the major causes of obesity.

Psychological Factors

Many people eat in response to negative emotions such as boredom, sadness, anger, or depression.

During a binge eating episode, people eat large amounts of food and feel that they cannot control how much they are eating. Those with the most severe binge eating problems are also likely to have symptoms of depression and low self-esteem. These people may have more difficulty losing weight and keeping it off than people without binge eating problems.

If you are upset by binge eating behavior and think you might have binge eating disorder, seek help from a health professional such as a psychiatrist, psychologist, or clinical social worker.

Environmental Factors

Environment also strongly influences obesity. This includes lifestyle behaviors such as what a person eats and his or her level of physical activity. Americans tend to eat high-fat foods, and put taste and convenience ahead of nutrition. Also, most Americans do not get enough physical activity.

These are not all the causes of obesity. However, the main causes are eating too much and/or not being active enough. If you eat more calories than your body burns up, the extra calories are stored as fat. Everyone has some stored fat. Too much fat results in being overweight or obese.

Hot dogs, Big Macs, French fries, macaroni and cheese, nachos, potato chips, ice cream -- all these high-fat American favorites are cheap, accessible and delicious. Is it any surprise that fatty foods are contributing to the soaring obesity rates in this country?

Have you made a decision to take control of your lifestyle to not be obese? Here are some resources that can help.

What Do You Think Is Causing Your Obesity?

What do you think might be causing or contributing to your being overweight or even obese? Share it!