Nov 29, 2024
I am Dr. Mollie Cecil with UHC Medical Weight Management, and I am here today to provide you with ideas and tips concerning your healthy weight.
1). How does obesity affect one’s health?
Obesity affects health in two main ways: by the weight of excess fat tissue (fat mass disease) and by releasing harmful chemicals (sick fat disease/adiposopathy).
Fat mass disease includes wearing out of joints, back pain, sleep apnea, and breathing problems. This is because of the extra weight of fat tissue, which causes joints to wear out quickly. It also prevents airways from opening up all the way.
Sick fat disease contributes to many conditions, and we learn about more every day. Sick fat disease contributes to fatty liver and liver failure and blockages in the heart and arteries. It is thought to be the reason why people with obesity have a higher chance of severe COVID-19 infections. Fat tissue around your body’s internal organs, called visceral fat, is particularly dangerous.
Sick fat disease is such a problem that people with a BMI higher than 40 have the same risk of health problems and death rate as people who smoke daily.
2). Unfortunately, individuals suffering from excess weight and obesity experience a lot of discrimination in their lives. There are two main forms of discrimination that obese people experience, one is weight bias, explain for us what that term means?
Unfortunately, individuals suffering from excess weight and obesity experience a lot of discrimination in their lives. This occurs at home, at work, and in healthcare settings. The two main forms are weight stigma and weight bias:
Weight bias: Harmful beliefs about a person based on their body size Example: “People with obesity are lazy and lack willpower. Obesity is responsible for any symptom a patient might have.”
3). The other form of discrimination is weight stigma provide us with some examples of this?
Weight stigma: Harmful actions a person with obesity experiences because of their weight
Example: A healthcare provider does not diagnose a serious condition because they believe all of a patient’s symptoms are due to their weight.
This content was originally posted on the WDTV News website here.
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