Causes of Obesity

With obesity statistics rising at alarming rates, the causes of obesity are being explored with greater and greater urgency.

Obesity is not just about fat, and it's not only about good fats versus bad fats either.

To a large extent, it is also about the fat being consumed out of proportion to the vitamins and other nutrients that help the body deal with fats, both good and bad.

What is Obesity?

Besides being a measurement of body mass index, Obesity is a form of malnutrition: mal essentially means out of balance. In the case of obesity, the balance is an excess of nutrients, fat being an essential nutrient for our survival.

This excess is further exacerbated by the lack of certain vitamins, such as Vitamin B6, B12, and the antioxidant vitamins found in fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as other nutrients such as selenium.

Those are the vitamins that help break down fats and move them around the body where they're needed.

The same foods that are causing obesity and all of its related health problems here are also responsible for the increasing incidence of malnutrition caused by vitamin deficiencies found in countries where people are dying from those deficiencies every day. Fast foods in the American diet are directly linked to the causes of obesity and rising obesity statistics.

On top of all of that, people are desperately trying to lose weight by turning to fad diets and diet pills that deplete the vitamins and other nutrients needed by the body to process fats and other essential energy sources (carbohydrates and proteins).

Trying to find a healthy weight loss program is like trying to find the proverbial needle in the haystack of the fad diet industry.

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Obesity is a Public Health Epidemic

Changing the trends in obesity statistics means more than restoring the balance of nutrients and calorie intake on an individual basis; it means restoring the balances that have gone awry in our society.

Individual lifestyle, diet and nutrition habits, and attitudes about food do have to change. The Handbook of Obesity Treatment may be a helpful road map.

But obesity is a public health issue that will require an entire cultural shift among our population, away from the causes of obesity, including:

Instant gratification — whether by getting what we want whenever we want it at fast food takeout windows and 24-hour convenience stores, or by grabbing onto the latest quick-fix fad diet in the hopes that we'll magically, instantly drop the pounds that have taken a lifetimes to gain. There is no quick-fix.
More and Bigger is Better — it's not. In the case of fast food and obesity, what looks like a great bargain is destructive and suicidal, on more levels than just for the individual. Yes, we're getting more than our money's worth - at the cost of our health.

The environmental and cultural causes of obesity are far bigger than any one obese person's willpower or capacity to change.

That statement might be borne out by the fact that we are seeing such an alarming rise in the incidence of childhood obesity.

Are you going to blame your four-year old for not having the willpower to resist slurping up the last drop of that super-sized milk shake?

Hopefully, you will guide them to develop that willpower and to listen to their innate hunger cues. You will show them that bigger is not necessarily better, and there will be more later. And then, take them for a bike ride.

Consider the upbringing of the last generation, the attitudes of our parents about wasting food: we were told to clean our plates, to think about starving people in other countries around the world.

Our training to clean our plates, combined with the super-sized portions of fast, fatty, available-24-hours-everywhere food has undoubtedly contributed to our weight problems, and they can also now be seen in childhood obesity statistics.

As a species, we've forgotten to trust our basic instincts around food — our innate hunger cues:

eat when you're hungry,
eat from nature's offerings,
stop when you're full.

The food tastes good, it's fast and easy to get, and we clean our plates so that we're not wasteful.

The struggle against obesity and toward health will be a long haul, just as it's taken us to get where we are, individually and as a society. Obesity is ruining lives, on a physical, mental, emotional and social level.

A healthy diet with the right mix of vitamins and other nutrients and an appropriate ratio of calories in to calories out is the solution to obesity on an individual level, it's true. But what can we do to recover from the cultural and environmental imbalances that are the causes of obesity in the first place?