Obesity Essay

Name: Ilse van Aalst Class 9P (Stockholm International School)
One world essay: obesity

A. Definition

Obesity is a disease that only occurs with mammals, so also with animals butthat’s rare, most of the animals that have obesity are pets. Because their owners feed them too much. When people get obesity it’s not so strange.
Very often, the terms overweight and obesity are used assynonyms. They are not synonyms. Overweight is what the word says: it means too much weight. When the term obesity is used, you can say it is a disease. A chronic disease even where your weight islife threatening. It is obviously in the genes and sciences don’t know all about this disease. But science has proven that obesity is dangerous for your body, that you have more chance on cancer or otherdiseases. There are no medicines or vaccines for obesity, you can’t avoid it. You can of course get some surgery.

B. Causes

Obesity can have a combination of causes, some examples:
*Energy-rich diet¹
* not enough exercise1
* diseases5:
* diabetes,
* high and low blood pressure,
* cholesterol,
* cerebral infarction,
* arthritis,
*cancer (kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer,cancer of the ovary, breast cancer),
* liver disease,
* gastro esophageal reflux disease,
* atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease,* congestive heart failure,
* gallbladder disease,
* venous thromboembolic disease
* binge eating disorder (physical)3
* stress1
* Social, economic: (People from lowersocio-economic backgrounds, die younger and are sicker than people from higher socio-economic background. People from lower socio-economic groups smoke more, drink more, eat unhealthy foods and doless exercise. Smokers tend to weight less than ex-smokers, while people who never smoked are located in between. )3-1
* Cultural4: (Environmental influences on obesity (in Samoa they have 60 –...