Hmrecovery.org - Health Care Information

Have you become conscious about recent weight gain since you have become pregnant? Are you planning to lose weight with help of diet pills to get rid of baby fat? There is only one advice, “NO”. It is never recommended to lose weight during pregnancy with the help of diet pills or some other ways of losing weight. There is no such concept of “safe diet pills” for pregnant women. Unborn baby inside mother needs lots of nutrition from food. Consult your doctor if you are concerned about your weight to avoid complications for the baby.

There is some amount of weight gain during pregnancy but being obese during the pregnancy can be dangerous. If you are among obese women, you should try to lose weight before pregnancy.

For the mothers who are breastfeeding, your baby would need certain amount of breast milk every day. To breast feed the child, mother needs extra nutrients and calories every day. Sllimming pills can affect the secretion of milk in breast feeding mothers which can affect the growth of child. Losing weight with the help of diet pill can adversely affect your and your child’s health. You can plan for weight loss after breast feeding period is over. You can maintain optimal weight after breastfeeding by eating regularly but having smaller meals.

Also, if you are among those women, who has become mother of new born baby child who has gained lot of weight and just can’t wait to get back into shape, single piece of advice would be to relax and take it easy. Trying to lose weight too fast can put you in trouble.

Obesity is growing at an alarming pace, especially in the developed countries such as the UK and the US, where the majority of people have irregular or sedentary lifestyles combined with unhealthy eating habits. Like adults, children also eat more and more junk food, which is considered unhealthy. Obesity is spreading fast to many parts of the world, as about two-third of men and women in 63 countries are either overweight or obese, thus giving rise to global obesity epidemic also known as ‘globesity’.

The obesity levels of people are determined with the help of Body Mass Index or BMI and their waist circumference. In one of the surveys conducted about a couple of years ago, it was found that 7% of people in Asia are obese as compared to 36% in Canada, 38% women in Middle Eastern countries and 40% in South Africa.

The average BMI levels of people in Northern Europe were 27 for men and 26 for women, thus putting them in overweight category. In Australia, average BMI was 28 for men and 27.5 for women whilst in Latin America, the average BMI was under 28.

In the UK, obesity is one of the major health issues for the government, as the majority of people are either overweight or clinically obese. It’s also one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the UK every year.

Controlling obesity
It’s a challenge to control the epidemic growth of obesity not only for health experts in the UK but throughout the world. The governments in the respective countries need to take some drastic steps to control this epidemic. It can be done at grass root levels by sponsoring weight loss plans and cutting down on the availability of unhealthy food items including junk food. In addition, it’s the responsibility of each and every individual to adopt a healthy lifestyle with regular physical exercise and healthy eating habits.

People who have already gained considerable amount of body weight can consider weight loss pills that are easily available on the market. Most of the weight loss pills that are available over the counter of local pharmacies contain unproven ingredients. Therefore, we suggest that you buy weight loss pills only after a proper consultation with a medical practitioner or your GP.

Some of the popular prescription-only weight loss pills are Reductil and Xenical. Reductil is an appetite suppressant that acts on the brain to reduce your hunger whilst Xenical is a lipase inhibitor that acts on the dietary fats and blocks about one-third of fats from getting absorbed in the body. Both these prescription pills have side effects as well as contraindications. Therefore, you should learn about their important information before taking any of these pills for obesity treatment. These drugs are helpful for controlling obesity up to an extent, so you shouldn’t depend solely on weight loss pills and try to adopt healthy lifestyle like more physical exercise and healthy diet.

In many developed nations of the world, obesity is a growing health problem. It is affecting men, women, and children equally, primarily due to their irregular or sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy eating habits. In some cases, obesity is caused due to physical conditions.

The most standard measure of obesity, even used by doctors, is body mass index or BMI. It is calculated by dividing your weight in kilograms with your height in metres squared. Your waist circumference can also be a measure of obesity and tells a lot about health conditions that you are likely to suffer from in near future.

Obesity is related to many serious health risks that include heart problems, diabetes, stroke, cancer, sleep apnoea, osteoarthritis, gout, gall bladder disease, and gall stones. You can lower your health risks due these diseases by seeking proper medical care.

When to seek medical care?
When you feel overweight problems are shaping into something serious and posing a great health risk, then you should have a thorough check up done by a doctor. The doctor can measure your BMI level and then may prescribe any suitable treatment to you.

There is pre-defined table of BMI values that can classify the different obesity levels of patients. According to this table, if your BMI level is:

• Less than 18.5, then you are an underweight person and require to gain some weight
• Within 18.5 to 25, then your weight is ideal and considered healthy
• Within 25 to 30, then you are an overweight person who needs to lose some weight
• Within 30 to 40, then you are classified as clinically obese who must lose extra weight to keep related health risks away

Nowadays, the weight loss market is full of medicines, most of which claim to be the next miracle weight loss drug. The reality is totally reverse, however and there is no weight loss drug that can help you with total weight loss in one night. Although there are some effective prescription drugs like Reductil and Xenical that can help you with moderate amount of weight loss, you shouldn’t take them without a medical consultation from a doctor.

• Water – Drink lots of it daily, especially before meals. This is an easy way to prevent overeating and will promote greater health effects, especially by reducing sugar intake.
• Exercise – Strive to exercise at least 3 times per week for at least 20 mins. This can mean something as simple as a walk, to anything like a soccer match.
• Fruits & Fiber – We learned in grade school to eat 3-5 servings of fruit per day. That still remains the same. Fruit provides great health benefits as well as contain minimal calories. Fiber is even better because it has a low kcal amount and is very filling.
• Consider Supplements – There are some weight loss pills and energy pills that can be helpful, especially if the above methods aren’t cutting it. Taking pills can increase energy levels and make things easier when it comes to exercising.
• Gum/Mints – Chewing gum or taking mints can reduce cravings to eat food. For example, when I am chewing on some gum, I don’t want to eat anything for awhile because it would taste gross from the mintiness.
• Friend – Having a friend or trainer is a great motivating tool that can help push you along to where you want to be. It is much more difficult to hit the gym if it’s all up to you get yourself there.

obesity is not a single condition; it normally has several other dangerous health risks associated with it. But before we discuss these risks, let us take a look at what causes obesity.

Obesity is a condition of the body wherein you accumulate more fats than are healthy as you burn lesser calories than your intake. It can be caused by a number of factors including physical, psychological, environment, medical, and hereditary.

Physical causes could be in the form of certain diseases or conditions that lead to over-eating. Psychological factors on the other hand are normally behavioural issues such as stress, anger, depression or boredom that lead a person to continuously eat.

Environmental causes include the inundation of fast food, processed food and enriched food that each one of us faces every day. Lack of exercise and lethargic lifestyles add to these. Medical factors relate to the side effects of certain medicines that lead to excessive weight gain. The last group of factors – hereditary include genes; obesity tends to run in the family.

Talking about the risks due to obesity, too much of weight in the body brings can lead to multiple conditions, from increased blood pressure to increased cholesterol levels and heart disease. Some of the commonly associated risks of obesity include:

• Back problems
• Cancer
• Type 2 diabetes
• Fatigue
• Gallstones
• GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease)
• Heart disease
• High cholesterol
• Hypertension
• Insomnia
• Kidney disease
• Liver disease
• Osteoarthritis
• Pregnancy complications
• Restricted mobility
• Sleep apnea
• Strokes
• Surgical complications
• Urinary stress incontinence

When to Seek Medical Care

If you are tending towards obesity, the right time to seek medical care is at the earliest. Obesity is when you are excessively overweight. In medical terms, doctors recognise a patient as obese when his/her body mass index (BMI) is over 30. If the BMI is between 25 and 30, the patient is said to be overweight.

If you have started gaining weight and are already overweight, you should not wait to turn obese before seeking medical treatment. It is easier to bring weight under control while in the overweight stage than obese. So where weight issues are concerned, the sooner you talk to your doctor, the better.