Overweight Explained

If you are unsure what the terms being overweight and obesity mean, here is a detailed definition to help you understand the terms and relate them to people's lives.

It is no great secret that being overweight or obese with excess fat accumulation, especially around the torso can cause health problems.

It is also common knowledge that trying to lose weight with certain diets can be ineffective in the long term, while in the short term, some meal replacement diet food delivery diets can be effective.

When ascertaining the cost of Nutrisystem or similar home delivery diet solutions, it can work out to be affordable as long as the dieter sticks to the plan. However, let's focus on the problem that dieting is utilized to try to solve.

The most popular device for defining whether a person is overweight or obese is the body mass index scale, described below.

Body Mass Index (BMI)

The body mass index is a simple measure of weight-for height that is used to classify obesity and overweight in adults.

To arrive at the BMI, you can calculate a person's weight divided by their height in meters (kg/m2).

BMI is the best population-level measure for obesity and overweight because it is comparable for both sexes as well as for all ages.

However. it should only be used as a guideline, since it might not reflect the same level of fatness in different people depending on their height, bone structure or overall build.

Overweight Adults

The World Health Organization defines obesity and overweight in adults as:

• Overweight: A BMI higher than 25
• Obese: A BMI higher than 30

Overweight Children (5-19 years)

For children between 5 and 19 years old, obesity and overweight are defined as:

• Overweight refers to a BMI-for-age being greater than 1 standard deviation higher than the WHO Growth Reference median
• Obesity is more than 2 standard deviations higher than the WHO Growth Reference median

Facts About Obesity and Being Overweight

Here are some facts about overweight and obesity in the population worldwide according to the World Health Organization (WHO):

Recent WHO Global Estimates

What follows are global estimates of overweight figures obtained from the WHO:

• More than 1.9 billion people aged 18 and over were overweight in 2016. Over 650 million of these adults were obese
• 39% of adults (18-years and older) were overweight in 2016, (40% women and 39% men)
• Approximately 13% of the adult population (11 % of men, 15 % of women) of the world were obese in 2016
• Between 1975 and 2016, the global prevalence of obesity almost tripled

An estimated 38.2 millions children aged 5 and under were obese or overweight in 2019. Obesity and overweight were once a problem in high-income countries.

However, they are on the rise in low and middle-income nations, especially in urban areas.

The number of overweight children aged 5 and under in Africa has increased by almost 24% percent since 2000. Nearly half of all children aged under 5 who were obese or overweight in 2019 came from Asia.

In 2016, more than 340 million children, adolescents and young adults aged 5-19 were obese or overweight.

Children and adolescents between the ages of 5 and 19 have seen an increase in obesity and overweight, from 4% in 1975 to 18% in 2016. Similar trends have occurred for both boys and girls. In 2016, 18% of girls were overweight, and 19% for boys.

In 2016, more than 124 million children (6% of girls, 8% of boys) were obese.

Worldwide, being obese or overweight are more common causes of death than being underweight. The global obesity rate is higher than that of the underweight. This applies to all regions except for parts of sub-Saharan Africa or parts of Asia.

What is the Cause of Obesity and Excess Weight?

Obesity and excess body weight are generally caused by an imbalance in energy between calories burned and calories consumed. There has been:

• Increased intake of energy-dense foods high in fats and sugars
• An increase in physical inactivity as a result of the increasing sedentary nature many types of work, changing modes and transportation, and growing urbanization.

Many changes in diet, size of food portions and activity patterns can be attributed to environmental and societal factors.

Summary

The figures worldwide show a continual increase in the numbers of people gaining weight in unhealthy amounts.

Environmental changes in a number of factors including the way in which food is farmed on a large scale as well as the increase in refined carbohydrates and sugars consumed on a daily basis are attributed for the rise in these figures.


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