An Obese Individual Is Just Someone Who Eats Too Much

If you Are one of those individuals who believe that there is simply no excuse for obesity and that a grossly overweigh person is just somebody who eats too much food and does not take sufficient exercise, then think again. Although it is undoubtedly the case that overeating combined with an inactive lifestyle can lead to obesity, this is most assuredly not the only cause.

Despite the fact that not terribly well understood at this time, there is thought to be a genetic factor that can pre-dispose some individuals to obesity. For instance, some forms of the genes responsible for controlling such things as appetite and metabolism are thought to contribute to obesity when combined with specific environmental conditions.

Additionally, there are various genetic disorders which can lead to obesity. Prader-Willi syndrome for example, named after Andrea Prader and Heinrich Willi and was first described in 1956, is a genetic disorder in which, amongst other things, individuals have an insatiable appetite and build up excess fat, particularly within the central portion of the body.

Underlying illness may also lead to a gain in weight and obesity. Perhaps the most well know, but certainly not the only, illness that frequently leads to obesity is hypothyroidism, where the thyroid gland secretes too little thyroid hormone. Although the disorder itself results in only relatively mild weight gain, when combined with suitable environmental conditions, this can very easily develop in a very substantial rise in weight.

Medication can also result in a rise in weight. The list of medications that can trigger weight gain is very long but one class of drugs that is causing concern and has attracted attention from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a new class of atypical antipsychotics that can have a marked affect on a person's metabolism.

There are also a number of specific eating disorders that can cause obesity, like binge eating disorder. Binge eating disorder is a psychiatric disorder (that is also an element of the condition of bulimia nervosa) in which, as its name indicates, people are not able to control their eating and frequently add binge eating into an otherwise normal pattern of eating.

Certain diets can also lead to obesity without the individual realizing that it is their diet that is causing the problem. This is therefore not a case of just eating too much, but of eating the wrong type of food. In some individuals for instance certain foods can result in an unusually high blood suger level for a short time immediately after eating.

Slimming itself may also produce obesity. The fact of the matter is that many diets fail and we are seeing a growing number of individuals who spend a substantial period of their lives moving from one diet to another in the hope of losing weight. What happens here is that they generally lose weight while on a diet and then put it back on again, normally with a little bit extra, every time they stop dieting. As they move on and off several different diets their weight will cycle up and down, but the underlying trend is for their weight to go up over time, eventually leading to obesity.

These are merely some of the causes of obesity, other than simple overeating and insufficient exercise, and many of these are either not within the control of the individuals concerned or they are severely limited in their ability to take control of the situation.

So, when you next see an obese person you could be right in assuming that they have caused their own problem, but you might also be wrong in jumping to this conclusion.