Obesity: A Global Health Essay.

Obesity has become an important heath problems and it is an issue which is increasing with time. The term obesity means conditions related to weight gain. However, in this 21^st century, The term obesity could be used to describe management of weight and this term often used in the definition of medical terms. Obesity is measured my Body Mass Index (BMI). If the BMI values more than 30, it determines, the person has gained obesity (Bhaskaran et al., 2014). According to United Nations, food and food and agricultural organization, UK is now regarded as the fat man of Europe ("Britain: 'the fat man of Europe' - Live Well - NHS Choices", 2017; Today, 2017). At present in United Kingdom, 24.9% of the population is considered obese (Mindell et al, 2012). The issues related to obesity with time are increasing with the rise of overweight persons connected health related factors. The reason behind the growth of obesity is that the less utilization of energy and a more luxurious life style, sedentary in nature (Mackenbach, 2012).

  Medical sciences are trying their best to get rid off these problems with the introduction of a new medicines and medical techniques. According to the recent estimates, in United States of America 67%-70% suffer from obesity and their body mass is considered to be more than 26. It has been estimated by the World Health Organization that 2.5 billion of adults will be overweight by the year 2015-16. According to the further analysis and experimentation, obesity would can cause approximately 54% deaths.   By following the trend, nursing needs to be adjusted as there is an increase in the number of overweight people. It is stated that when these patients want the care of nursing, the size of the person might create a difficult issues for the intervention of nursing. Issues such as challenges while respiration, altering the taking of drugs can create concerns for nursing.

Obesity in adult can be described as the Body mass Index (BMI) equal to 30 or more than that. Adolescents and children experienced BMI above 95% percentage. Obesity tends to differ by sex, age, ethnic group among the ladies. The diseases such as diabetes, growing fat in the liver, hypothyroidism, cholesterol, blood pressure and also cardiovascular syndrome are quite prevalent among the obese patients. It is the reaction of environment and gene where the individuals become vulnerable for delicious or palatable culinary dishes which lead to the reduction of energy, which gives birth to the obesity (Bombak, 2014). Evidences also suggest that it is possible to reduce a small amount of weight even without achieving a perfect weight. Little amount of reduction in weight would lead to the easing of risk in people having high blood pressure. The perfect management of diet and regular walking can also help the person to reduce weight, which would be suitable for the man’s body (Bombak, 2014). However, such requirements become difficult to achieve at times.  In England, in the age range of 16 years to 75 years, 20% of the population are said to suffer from obesity. More than 25% in Birmingham are said to be obese, which is considered to be in the United Kingdom as the third highest rate (bps.org.uk, 2017).

Prevalence of Obesity

According to the estimates, approximately thirty percent of the population of the world are either considered to be overweight or obese. Rise in the trends of obesity globally is enhancing with years. Obesity is now regarded as one of the major epidemics in both developing and advanced nations. In the nations which are developed face the higher obesity rates among the man than woman, even the younger population is getting vulnerable to the obesity rates. In United Kingdom, as mentioned before, is the third highest rate in the scale of measuring weight.  57 percentage of woman and 67 percentage of man are obese and their BMI is more than 25 (bps.org.uk, 2017). It has been estimated that overweight person are about 61.7% of the population and in UK population 24.8% are obese. According to a survey in the year 2011- 12, the obesity rate is 13.5% in the Northeastern region of England. Tamworth in Staffordshire has 31% obese population and it was named as Britain’s fattest town ("Obesity - NHS Choices", 2017).

Heath inequalities mean the difference in the status of health or the difference I the distribution of health factors among the population administered by the different policy rules. These inequalities of health are not completely dependent on the factors of health care system and it is also important to understand the reasons behind the causes of inequalities of health (Hilton, 2012). The major factors that influence such inequalities of health are unhealthy diet, goods and services, economic status, poor living standard and the care of the person towards th health damaging issues. There is a link between the rise in national income, socio economic status and obesity. It has been observed that the countries of less national income and people with high SES are inclined to become more obese because they are inclined to have high calorie food (Dinsa et al., 2012). On the other hand, in the countries like higher capita income, countries with higher SES are likely to become less obese as they are health conscious and they exercise regularly. From the point of view of economic development, health of the status of the country improves with the per capita income of the country (Dinsa et al., 2012. According to a study, this confirmed the collection of data about lifestyle from the seventeen nations in Europe. Trends such as reading books, attending cultural events, going for movies, attending gym, these are associated with a lower BMI.  Paradoxically, people who are associated with higher BMI index are prone to watching television, participate in sports and events (Bhaskaran et al., 2014). This trend is quite trending among the groups of higher income of Western Europe (Pampel, 2012). In UK, the inequalities among the larger section of women are quite intense in the sense of obesity, especially in the Southern part of Europe.  Moreover it has also been traced out that in England, a gradient of socio-economic condition points out the BMI for the people residing in a poor neighborhood. Therefore, in England, the regional inequalities have become a dominant factor since the last decades and also the income disparity grew wider in some parts of England. It has also been concluded that, there is a large variations in the case of obesity in Britain (Hilton, 2012)

Causes of Obesity

Obesity is leaving a huge impact on the people’s daily lifestyle. In the urban areas, people are vulnerable to unhealthy diet and lack activities. The monotonous life of the urban people are susceptible to obesity. In United Kingdom, an adult spends an immovable lifestyle about six hours a day by reading books or watching television and the low energy utilization activities. A study confirms that on an average women and men spend 3 hours a day watching television and it rises to three hours during weekend. It has been recorded that average person walks about 225 miles in the year 1976 compared to 192 miles in the year 2003 and also further suffered a fall in running miles in the recent years. In the year 2012, a survey was conducted and according to the survey, 67% of men and 55% of women met the policy of government for the physical activities of 150 minutes per week in minimum (Mindell et al, 2012). There is a prevalent of large ethnic, socio-economic are more inclined to become obese which push them towards a health risk like type 2 diabetes, heart diseases and strokes (Hex et al., 2012). The secondary diseases arising out of obesity are related to the premature mortality and loss of health in lower socioeconomic status. The obesity not only not only affects individuals but tries to hamper company’s economy as well. Obesity is not only regarded as health issues but also gives birth to discrimination, unemployment, reduced earnings and also social inclusion, all these factors result in creating a gap between inequalities in health and social care. The rate of inclination between obesity and weight differs from country to country. Women receiving education of lower level are five times like to be gain obesity. This states that people from lower socio- economic strata of the society gain weight faster from the people belonging to higher- socio economic status of the society (Hilton, 2012).

The root of obesity can also be traced out in the psychological factors, where a transition happens from leading a kind of lifestyle to the intake of non-nutritious food. The individuals give a reaction out of anger, anxiety by eating and boredom. It has also been noticed that the state of being unhappy and rise of stress lead to the intake of food.  Research stated that over intake of food can relate to the state of mind as a gift of satisfaction.    This factor also degrades the developmental stage of children due to lack of attention given by mother. Clinical studies have also pointed out that psychological issues, immature behavior, rise of mistrust for others, these factors lead to obesity (Hilton, 2012). There are other psychological problems which results to obesity as well such as obese people face many emotional turbulences such as growing negativity and growing inferiority complex which lowers down the self-esteem. Both men and women would likely to suffer, although women are treated differently due to the different physical appearances.   It has been stated that United Kingdom was inflicted with a loss of 20 billion pounds per year due to the loss of efficiency and increase in the number of sick leaves (Hilton, 2012). People having Night eating Syndrome, often faces distress, insomnia and anorexia. Depression and anxiety are quite prevalent in overweight and obese population. Pregnancy are also identified as the rise of obesity in woman. The pregnant woman are generally inclined to excessive weight rise. One in four people in united Kingdom, suffers from a condition arouse from mental health at each year (Oteng et al., 2013). An approximately 25%- 26% of the population is regarded to suffer from obesity (Hilton, 2012).  

Conclusion

Therefore, it could be concluded that obesity has become a major issue globally and people of different countries are being affected. The change in lifestyle and the growth of demand for luxurious lifestyle  making people’s life more sedentary in nature. Not only United Kingdom and United States, but different countries across the world suffer from this health issue. The factors such as socio-economic disparity, psychological factors and gender and cultural differences making a pathway for the obesity to possess human beings in general. Medical sciences are coming up with medications, although people also need to be aware of themselves and take proper steps to reduce weight accordingly.

References

Bhaskaran, K., Douglas, I., Forbes, H., dos-Santos-Silva, I., Leon, D. A., & Smeeth, L. (2014). Body-mass index and risk of 22 specific cancers: a population-based cohort study of 5· 24 million UK adults. The Lancet.

Bombak, A. (2014). Obesity, health at every size, and public health policy. Journal Information, 104(2).

Bps.org.uk. (2017). Retrieved 21 June 2017, from https://www.bps.org.uk/sites/default/files/images/pat_rep95_obesity_web.pdf

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Dinsa, G. D., Goryakin, Y., Fumagalli, E., & Suhrcke, M. (2012). Obesity and socioeconomic status in developing countries: a systematic review. Obesity reviews, 13(11), 1067-1079.

Hex, N., Bartlett, C., Wright, D., Taylor, M., & Varley, D. (2012). Estimating the current and future costs of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes in the UK, including direct health costs and indirect societal and productivity costs. Diabetic Medicine, 29(7), 855-862.

Hilton, S., Patterson, C., & Teyhan, A. (2012). Escalating coverage of obesity in UK newspapers: the evolution and framing of the “obesity epidemic” from 1996 to 2010. 

Mackenbach, J. P. (2012). The persistence of health inequalities in modern welfare states: the explanation of a paradox. Social science & medicine.

Mindell, J., Biddulph, J. P., Hirani, V., Stamatakis, E., Craig, R., Nunn, S., & Shelton, N. (2012). Cohort profile: the health survey for England. International journal of epidemiology.

Obesity - NHS Choices, (2017). Nhs.uk. Retrieved 17 June 2017, from https://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Obesity/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Oteng-Ntim, E., Kopeika, J., Seed, P., Wandiembe, S., & Doyle, P. (2013). Impact of obesity on pregnancy outcome in different ethnic groups: calculating population attributable fractions. PLoS One, 8(1), e53749.

Pampel, F. C, (2012). Does reading keep you thin? Leisure activities, cultural tastes, and body weight in comparative perspective. Sociology of health & illness, 34(3), 396-411.

Today, M. (2017). What is Obesity?. Medicalnewstoday.com. Retrieved 17 June 2017, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/obesity