Healthy Nutrition is the start to prevent Obesity!

People these days eat more than they need to, thus it contributes to the increase rates of obesity. To be more specific, people are consuming more calories than they need a day, and those excess calories will be stored as fat in our body which leads us to gain weight. (Teens Health, 2011) 

Still eating food that harms body
because it's cheap

But why do we keep on consuming high caloric food when we know that we will gain weight? 

Well, it’s because many restaurants are promoting value meals to attract people into ordering unhealthy food so that they can earn of money. Customers are willing to order meals that are seemingly cheap  but highly caloric because they want to save up money, but in return, they are actually risking their health. (Teens Health, 2011)





Many people nowadays know that nutrition is very important in our lives, so let me tell you something about nutrition.





Nutrition contains these basic things:

•  Proteins that promotes growth and repairmen of muscle and body tissues
• Fats that is an energy source which absorbs vitamins, protect our organs, and regulate our body temperature, essential for growth and development
• Carbohydrates is our core source of energy
• Minerals help us build up our body structure and functioning of the body
• Vitamins help with the chemical processes in our body to function



Cannot decide what to get because
it's either you buy something affordable or
trying to stay healthy

• Water is what makes up our body to carry nutrients and to help the body function(Glycemic Index, 2009)

This only tells you the nutrition facts
about 2 serving sizes

All the Canadian food products will have nutrition label that tells you about the nutrition facts about the food product. However when you are reading these label you need to be careful about the serving sizes because they only tell you facts about a certain amount of grams, and not necessary how much you CAN consume. (Health Canada, 2007)

On the Canada’s food guide table, it shows how many servings of the different types of food you should consume in order to stay healthy. This chart is for you to consider what to consume in order to maintain a balanced diet. However to maintain a healthy body it is best to consume more vegetables and fruits. (Health Canada, 2007)

A reference guide as to how much
food you should consume a day

How does calories work?
To gain a pound of fat, we must consume 3500 calories a day and to lose a pound of fat you need to burn more than 3500 calories a day to reach a state called “caloric deficit”.  Caloric deficit means that your body contains a negative number of calories for that day. Most importantly, you need to focus on “caloric deficit” rather than restricting the calories you intake because when you restrict your caloric intake, you may lose weight, but it also decreases your body’s ability to function on a regular basis. To simply put an understanding to nutrition, there is no perfect number of calories you should intake or what types of food you should consume more because it depends on your body’s needs. (Hussman Fitness, 2005) To give you an idea of around how much calories you need to intake, Health Canada has provided us a chart:

This is how much calorie intake you should have each day for males
(Health Canada, 2007)

Daily calorie intake for women
(Health Canada, 2007)

Why is nutrition important for obesity people?

• Reduce the risks of CVD, high blood pressure, diabetes, and coronary heart disease
•  You will not be overweight or obese
• You have the energy to function on a daily basis
• You will have a healthy lifestyle
  (Centers for Science Public and Interest, 2011)

What do you do if you want to eat healthy?

• Avoid saturated fats, because it raises your cholesterol levels which clots up the arteries and lead to a heart disease
• Consume lots of fibre as it prevents you from heart diseases and maintains your weight
• Do not consume too much sugar; if sugar is not used up during exercise, it get stored as fat in your body causing a weight gain
• Drink around 8-12 cups of water a day because over 50% of your body functions on water
  (Health Canada, 2007)

Try to choose the right foods for your own
health.

If you follow a healthy nutrition diet, then your body should be at a healthy state which helps reduces the chances of you being obese.


Reference List:

Center for Science in Public Interest. (2011). Why good nutrition is important. Retrieved from http://www.cspinet.org/nutritionpolicy/nutrition_policy.html#obese

Glycemic Index. (2009). Why is nutrition important. Retrieved from http://www.glycemic-index.org/why-is-nutrition-important.html

Health Canada. (2007, May 2). Food and nutrition: how much food you need everyday. Retrieved from http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/basics-base/quantit-eng.php

Hussman Fitness. (2005). How calories work. Retrieved from http://www.hussmanfitness.org/html/TFCalories.html

Teens Health. (2011). How much food should I eat? Retrieved from http://kidshealth.org/teen/food_fitness/dieting/portion_size.html

Surgery or not? Be AWARE!

Lately, I have been looking through the web and trying to search for ways to cure obesity. And I have came by a site which attracted me at first!

And here it is...

SLIMBAND!

When I clicked into this website, this is what I saw!

This is a program that helps people “cure” obesity by doing  laparoscopic surgery which is an abdominal surgery where they perform small incisions in your abdominals and insert mini cameras and other instruments inside your body. After the surgery is performed, your body will start to lose weight.

This website sounds promising, and I can’t say that this method does not work, but you have to be aware of many things they state. 

Let me show you some things to be aware of:

• One of the benefits of this program is, “No counting calories. No eliminating food groups. No more worries about ‘cheating'," and that is because we don't consume that much food. However, the food we consume may be highly caloric and calories is an important factor contributing to our body weight and to show that, CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) provided a chart stating how we can maintain our weight, gaining and losing weight. 
• They have emphasized continuously that after the surgery, we are able to eat any types of food whenever we want, and that this won’t affect us from gaining back the weight, but this doesn't mean that we don't have to follow the Canadian Food Guide, in fact, the Canadian Food Guide is for you to follow in order to maintain healthy!
• Under the FAQ page, it states that they have to perform a laparoscopic surgery on the client and what they did was only explaining what they will do during the surgery, no further explanation. However, in the website of SAGES, it listed out a lot MORE information regarding the risks and consequences about this surgery.
• On their website they state, "If you qualify for most elective surgeries, you are a candidate for laparoscopic surgery." The truth is, not EVERYONE qualifies for this program! The laparoscopic surgery is only for people that have a serious problem with obesity, but Slimband intends to promote this surgery to everyone that want to lose weight.
• They also showed statistics about how much weight you can lose in a 12 month period, but does that mean you are losing weight in a healthy style? Indeed, many people talked about their experiences about losing weight, but most of these examples seem unreasonable; the highest number of pounds lost had reached above 100lbs/year! This is too good to be true!

You can lose up to 72% of your body weight in a year!!!

Many of these examples sound unrealistic

Many websites, up to a point, lack credibility because they want to attract customers to earn money; you have to be careful in which ones you look at and read everything they post! Moreover, at teens health, they say, “Being healthy is really about being at a weight that is right for YOU!”

Overall, this website is very attracting and shows another method for you to consider in curing obesity, but just be really clear of what they are doing. If you do decide to join their program, remember to do a lot of background research and ask your doctor questions to double check the reliability! 

Reference List:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011, Feburary 15). Healthy weight – it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle: Balancing calories. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/calories/index.html

Health Canada. (2011, March 07). Food and nutrition: Eating well with Canada’s food guide. Retrieved from http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/index-eng.php

Slimband Inc. (2011). Slimband. Retrieved from www.slimband.com

Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons. (2011). Laparoscopic surgery for severe obesity. Retrieved from http://www.sages.org/publication/id/PI15/

Teens Health. (2011). Finding a healthy weight. Retrieved from http://teenshealth.org/teen/food_fitness/dieting/lose_weight_safely.html

What is Obesity?

Welcome to my Obesity blog! I am Shirley, a first year university student that is currently in a contemporary health issue class trying to learn about issues that are happening around us that may affect us. I believe understanding how different types of issues may affect us and knowing how to deal with them is important because we all want to live a healthy life.  I’m especially interested into understanding why maintaining a healthy weight affects our lives and how it blocks us from having a healthy life. I will be investigating issues around this area and hope to have a better understanding of the consequences of not having a balanced weight. 

The main issue of healthy weight I would like to focus on is about obesity, because right now, according to WHO, obesity is one of the main problems around the globe that is affecting us from achieving the goal of maintaining a healthy weight. So, my target audience is people who are obese and want to have more a an in depth understanding about it. To begin, I believe when I point out the word “obesity” people will think about the words “fat” and “skinny”. Also, many people interpret the issue of obese as simply people who consume too much food and don’t watch their weight, but that’s not what obesity only is. Obesity is having excess fat in our body that harms us in many ways. You can be obese from your genetics, having less physical activity, illness or simply living in a wrong lifestyle! And behind all these causes may lead to chronic diseases and cardiovascular disease associated with obesity. That is mainly why the rates of people being obese are increasing every year and all mortality and morbidity rates are spiking up!

And how can we know if we are obese?  Well, it’s definitely not just simply thinking that looking fat means obese, because your definition of fat can be very bias. To be precise, you need to know what your body mass index (BMI) is. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), if your BMI is greater or equal to 25, you’re just overweight; if it’s greater than or equal to 30, you’re obese. To reduce the problem of obesity, it’s best to limit your calorie intake, consider what food you should consume and have a regular basis of physical activity.

The main point of this blog is to inform people to try to avoid being obese, do regular exercise and really investigate on what you are consuming and if it’s healthy for you! Moreover, this blog will contain a lot of facts and my personal opinions about obesity and I hope you all will be interested with my posts!