Category: Obesity

It would be tempting to believe that an obese person has more fat cells, but the quantity of fat cells does not change. What is different in the obese vs. leaner person’s fat cells is just the size. Scientists have known since the 1970’s that the amount of fat cells in both  [Read more...]

If you are overweight or obese, regardless of age, or whether or not there’s a history of smoking, having excess abdominal weight lowers your lung function. The chronic inflammation associated with fat tissue is one factor; the other is that excess fat also constricts the lungs, reduces lung function and weakens the muscles that  [Read more...]

Our feet are small compared to the rest of our body; yet, the amount of pressure we put on them is great when we’re just standing. When we walk or run, however, it’s tremendous . . . and the bigger we are, the more our feet are asked to bear.    Many problems that occur  [Read more...]

The term “healthy obesity” has gained some traction over the last several years, and I want to put that oxymoron to rest. When I hear it, I always ask, “What does that mean? . . . that you haven’t had a stroke or heart attack yet?” . . . that the ticking time bomb hasn’t  [Read more...]

Osteoarthritis develops when the cushioning material between the joints, known as cartilage, wears away, eventually allowing the bones to painfully rub or grind together. Obesity is an important risk factor for osteoarthritis sufferers. This is because high amounts of fat around the liver, muscle tissues and in the blood is more likely  [Read more...]

When you are over-fat, fat build ups on the inside of the throat which can partially block your airway. When you sleep, the extra fat tissue puts pressure on the structures of the throat. This leads to further constriction. Additionally, excess body fat has an effect on your muscles. This is true  [Read more...]

Too often, I hear from clients: “I don’t want to buy new clothes until I lose weight?” or “I’m waiting to get slim before I spend money on clothes.” If this is you, I’ll tell you the same thing I tell them: STOP! It doesn’t work. Usually, the first instinct may  [Read more...]

Daily, we see obese females posting their photos on Instagram and other socials saying things like “This is what a real body looks like,” and “No man wants skin and bones.” Hmm . . . should we call that “skinny shaming” I wonder? These messages conveys to overweight young girls that  [Read more...]

Driver behavior and driver health can have a serious impact on the lives of drivers, their passengers and the motorists and pedestrians around them. I’ll bet most of you have never considered that obese people are not as safe behind the wheel. I’ll bet you have never considered that obese people are  [Read more...]

Obesity in men has doubled in the last 25 years. According to the American Medical Association, more than 70% of American men are considered overweight, while over 30% are considered obese.The highest rates of male obesity are in the 45-74 age group, where one-third of men are obese. Yet, despite these numbers,  [Read more...]

Obesity and sperm health are not a healthy pairing which is why obesity is a central cause of male infertility. Sperm health is measured by three factors: Motility – Ability to swim efficiently; Vitality – Percentage of living healthy sperm in a specimen; and Morphology – Size and shape of individual sperm.  [Read more...]

The first set of organs affected by obesity is the reproductive system. It affects women’s menstrual cycles, ovulation, and ability to become pregnant. It affects men’s production of sperm, both in quality and motility. And that’s only part of the infertility equation. You can’t get pregnant if the libido ain’t working, right?  [Read more...]

Men, want to know why you develop type 2 diabetes at a lower BMI than women? It’s because where fat is distributed makes a big difference in one’s risk for the disease. Women gain weight, initially, in places that are metabolically safe – hips, thighs. (As they gain more weight, it  [Read more...]

The first group of organs impacted by excess body fat is the reproductive system. For men, being overweight or obese most often leads to low sperm count, less fertile sperm and definitely a lower motility in the sperm, with greater difficulty penetrating the egg. For women, too much body fat wreaks  [Read more...]

Although obesity can’t actually spread like an infectious disease, contact with other obese people does influence the likelihood of becoming overweight or obese yourself. This is because not only do friends spend a lot of time together, and more often than not eat similar foods and engage in the same physical (or lack  [Read more...]

Recently, a question was posed to me on Quora: Do you believe most fat people are fat by choice or is it something not everyone can control? The short answer: Yes. There are, of course, significant causes of obesity, such as those with mental health issues who use food to self-medicate much  [Read more...]

𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐟𝐥𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠? In my opinion, yes, they should. 📌 There’s weight criteria for our checked luggage. If we’re over, we are charged for it at check-in. Baggage weight is taken very seriously by the Federal Aviation Administration. In 2003, the  [Read more...]

Why does being overweight increase your chances of getting hemorrhoids? Hemorrhoid tissues are “cushions” of blood vessels that play an important role in helping your body eliminate waste. Food passes from the stomach through the intestines. The waste (stool) then travels through the colon to the rectum. It is stored in the rectum until  [Read more...]

How did so many of our pets get so overweight? In August, 2018, a woman named Susan Jenks of the New York Times published a story entitled “Our Fat Pets.” She shared statistics that 60% of cats and 56% of dogs in America are at unhealthy weights. She quoted the Association for Pet  [Read more...]

These days, western culture is immersed in the pandemic of political correctness and group think. It’s the extraordinary arrogance of the p.c. movement that seeks to impose on people what is right, okay, fair, or acceptable to think and say. It’s positively Orwellian and, in my opinion, should be resisted by anyone who considers  [Read more...]

While rare compared to female breast cancer, the incidence of male breast cancer (MBC) has increased in the last few decades, no doubt coincident with the ever-growing obesity epidemic. It has long been known that obesity and the risk of many types of cancer are linked, and although obesity is not considered an  [Read more...]

In his article, There’s No Such Thing as “Fat Shaming” — It’s Just Advertising,” Elliott Haworth writes: “I take issue with the Vicariously Offended; the virtuous who take up the mantle of oppression, regardless of whether they are personally affected, at every given opportunity.” I agree. These days the “shaming” label  [Read more...]

Over a decade ago, an international team of researchers reported that excess weight was linked to higher risks of 5 cancers: colon, esophagus, kidney, breast and uterus. Then, in August of 2016 that same group of researchers, in the New England Journal of Medicine, expanded that list significantly by identifying 8 additional cancers  [Read more...]

About a year ago, I had a phone inquiry with a woman who, conservatively, had to lose 75 pounds. I say “conservatively,” because I guesstimated at that number based on what she told me her weight and height was over the phone. From my many years experience, it’s safe to say that almost 99%  [Read more...]

We know that obese patients can expect longer surgery times. Just getting through the fat layers takes more time; obesity can often double the length of surgery. However, the longer the surgery proceeds, the longer the patient will need to be asleep, and the more anesthesia is necessary. What many people don’t  [Read more...]

The festival of Chanukah is one of the best loved holidays in the Jewish calendar. The powerful images of the miracles of the Jewish victory over the Selucid Greeks in the 2nd Century BCE and the miracle of the one-day supply of oil burning eight days in the re-dedication of the Temple are an  [Read more...]

Many people who are overweight or obese suffer with depression. Of those, for many who suffer from even mild depression, the extra burden of being overweight during the year-end holiday season only makes things worse. As I wrote in another article, in my experiences with clients,the larger one gets the smaller their world  [Read more...]

Radiology plays an important role in medical care, but the imaging process becomes more difficult for obese patients. Exams considered simple to perform on average sized patients need to be adapted in order to obtain quality images of obese individuals. Given the alarming trend of obesity and the long list of associated health  [Read more...]

“I’m not really that overweight; I’m big boned!” If I had a couple of bucks for every client that has said that to me over the years, I could have retired years ago! There is such a thing as being big boned—but it’s not a medical term, and it’s never used  [Read more...]

Given the alarming trend of obesity and the long list of associated health risks, it is no surprise that over the past few decades there’s been an increasing prevalence of obese individuals presenting themselves at hospital emergency rooms and entering radiology clinics in need of medical imaging for acute and chronic conditions.Radiology plays an  [Read more...]

As obesity numbers rise, so do the numbers of those with high cholesterol. Roughly one quarter of the cholesterol in our bodies resides in our brains. Researchers have found that patients with high levels of “bad” cholesterol in their blood tended to have more harmful tangles of protein inside their brain cells.   [Read more...]

Iron is a mineral that’s vital to our health, our metabolism and survival. All of our cells contain some iron, but most of the iron in our bodies is in our red blood cellswhich transport oxygen from our lungs to the organs and tissues throughout our bodies. However, inflammation associated with excess body weight  [Read more...]

What’s the connection between being overweight and gum disease? Most research suggests that fat cells produce many chemical signals and hormones that can increase inflammation in the body, decrease the effectiveness of your immune system, and increase your susceptibility to periodontal disease. Other research points to the possible eating habits of overweight  [Read more...]

While obesity affects both women and men, it’s women who more often, in my experience, will eventually seek professional assistance of some kind to lose weight, or do one quick-fix gimmick after another. Men, on the other hand, again in my experience and going by what they tell me when we meet for  [Read more...]

Over the past several years, while obesity rates have increased in most age groups in the United States, the biggest rise has been in older adults. More recently (2017, America’s Health Rankings analysis ofCDC), numbers show that over 60% of adults aged 60 and older are overweight; and almost 40% are obese. Falls  [Read more...]

In recent years, numerous studies and reviews bear out the relationship between obesity and cancer risk, treatment outcome and recurrence. More recently, however, two articles are worthy of special mention: In the winter 2016 issue of Your Weight Matters (the magazine of the Obesity Action Coalition) in an article titled, The Link  [Read more...]

Exposure to air contaminants, such as ammonia, sulfur dioxide, ozone and nitrogen dioxide, are known to be respiratory irritants that can cause illnesses such as asthma and other pulmonary diseases. Did you know that overweight and obese adults breathe in up to 50% more air every day, compared with adults of normal weight?  [Read more...]