Combatting Obesity
by: Riley J, Jakob C, Luis E, and Luis S
understanding the risks of obesity
a global pandemic
obesity is one of the most downplayed and wide spread health issues across the world. Obesity has affects such as hypertension, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and depression. As the prevalence of obesity increases as does the frequency of the associated symptoms and diseases.
Increased obesity = increased heart disease
increase in obesity, also increases the frequency of heart diseases such as:
~ Atherosclerosis
~ Aortic disease
~ Pulmonary embolism
~ Deep vein thrombosis
~ Poor peripheral circulation
~ Hypertension
~patient education
~cheaper weight loss programs
~community/government funded gyms
Mandating physicians to speak to overweight patients about their condition
Many physicians avoid talking to their obese patients about their condition if we mandated these conversations MD's and DO's alike would have to educate their patients about the risks of obesity and possible solutions. This will encourage people to lose weight and give them
Patient education
community gyms
cheaper and safer pharmaceuticals
Community gyms
By making government funded gyms more people would go to the gym, therefore decreasing the prevalence of obesity and its complications.
Cheaper and safer pharmaceuticals
We should do more research into weight loss drugs and cut the prices.
a sociological perspective on obesity~ by rosengren a
"The current obesity epidemic is mostly driven by environmental factors, including nutritional transition towards refined and fatty foods with the growing production of energy-dense food at relatively low cost, increased access to automatic means of transportation, mechanisation of work and sedentary lifestyles. These influences in modern society are modified by individual characteristics. Ultimately, energy intake in excess of caloric expenditure causes obesity, but why this occurs in some but not all individuals is not known. Obesity is more comment in the lower socioeconomic classes but even so, there is a varying relation of socioeconomic status with obesity between countries at different stages of development and, even in the Western world, socioeconomic gradients with respect to obesity are both heterogeneous and in transition. Potential mechanisms for an effect of obesity on subsequent social status have been proposed, the most obvious being related to the stigmatisation experienced by the obese. Obesity seems to be vastly related to mood disturbances, whereas there is no conclusive evidence that the reverse is true. When considering psychological aspects of obesity, depression is likely to be consequences, rather than causes of obesity."