Gaining Excess body Fat overall or Obesity was one of the major threats that significantly increases the risk of developing type II diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and several other major chronic diseases that contribute to premature death.
Not only does obesity increase the risk of disease and financial burden, but the psychological costs are significant. Obese people have a greater risk of developing depression and have lower self-esteem than non-obese adults.
Billions of dollars in research money each year is devoted to nutritional, exercise, and pharmaceutical interventions to help us lose weight. Every year, the obesity rate continues to climb. Many diets, drugs,` and exercise programs have claimed to be the “cure” to the obesity crisis, and yet still, it rises.
Many obese and overweight people feel helpless and hopeless because they’ve tried every diet under the sun and the scale continues to climb.
Unfortunately, I believe that much of the education on obesity and weight loss has focused on the wrong things. Our society still largely believes that we have a problem with weight loss, but that is simply not true.
Most people who attempt to lose weight (at least 10% of their body weight) are successful. If people are so successful at weight loss, why do we still have a growing obesity problem? While people are good at losing weight, they are not good at keeping the weight off.
It’s not because of the weight loss. It’s because they gain it all back. Weight regain statistics are shocking. The statistics are different depending on the source, but within one year of weight loss, around 50-70% of people will have regained all the weight they lost.
Further, 85% of people will gain it all back within two years of losing it. Within three years of weight loss, 95% of people will have gained it all back. Thus, the success rate of diets is ~5%, and most are equally terrible.
If this wasn’t bad enough, out of the people who regain weight, one-third to two-thirds will add back more weight than they originally lost.
Not only do they fail to maintain their weight loss, but they end up worse than before they ever started dieting. When these behaviors are cycled, we often refer to it as “yo-yo dieting” or “weight cycling,” as scientists call it.
There are a variety of physiological, psychological, and sociological reasons why this happens, In my opinion, yo-yo dieting may be the single biggest detriment to fighting obesity in existence. Sadly, many people get stuck in this cycle of losing weight, only to regain it, and more.
It’s important to look at our continual failures, note the similarities, and correct them so we don’t continue to make the same mistakes. It’s also important for us to understand what the successful ~5% of dieters do so that we can also learn from what is being done correctly.
to be continued…..
