The real wealth in life, beyond money and property, is having a healthy lifestyle – without worrying about the fact that certain illnesses might attack us. Unlike material things that come and go, our health is something that we can invest in while we are still young and use it until we grow old. Here, the famous adage, “Health is Wealth” comes to mind when we talk about the importance of health and it also reminds us that we should take good care of it and never take it for granted. One such health issue that people generally overlook is obesity.
In this modern era, everyone wants to be thin and look their best at all times, sometimes even at the expense of their health. Having a slim and trim body creates an attraction which no one can deny. Unfortunately, most overweight people or obsessed people do not have the time or energy to exercise regularly due to their busy schedules. Today’s way of life is less physically active than it used to be. People travel on buses and cars, rather than walking, and many people work in offices, where they are sitting still for most of the day. This means that the calories they eat are not getting burnt off as energy. Instead, the extra calories are stored as fat.
Obesity occurs when extra few pounds of fat accumulates in a body to such a degree that it rapidly increases your risk of diseases that can damage your health and give signals of life threatening diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. The fat may be equally distributed around the body or concentrated on the stomach or midrift (apple-shaped) or the hips and thighs (pear-shaped). Our weight is one basis of measuring if we are healthy or not – whether we belong to the category underweight, normal, overweight, or obese. There are two ways of knowing where we belong: through the common height-weight relationship and through our body mass index (BMI). Body mass index (BMI) is a measurement which compares weight and height. It determines if your weight is in the healthy range. Doctors use BMI because it compares your weight against your height. BMI defines people as overweight (pre-obese) if their BMI is between 25 and 30 kg/m2, and obese when it is greater than 30 kg/m2. The higher your BMI, the greater risk you have of contracting chronic diseases including:
*musculoskeletal disorders- especially osteoarthritis;
*some cancers (endometrial, breast and colon)
According to studies, in US, more than 34% of adults and in UK, around 46% of adults are obese. According to WHO (World Health Organization), by 2015, 700 million people (10% of the total population) will be obese. That compares with the 400 million adults worldwide believed to be obese in 2011. WHO attributes the current growth in obesity to “a global shift in diet towards increased intake of energy-dense foods that are high in fat and sugars but low in vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients and a trend towards decreased physical activity due to the increasingly sedentary forms of work, changing modes of transportation and increasing urbanization.”
There are various anti-obesity medication or weight loss drugs available in the market that several online pharmacies sell. These medications help to reduce or control weight. These drugs alter one of the fundamental processes of the human body, weight regulation, by altering appetite, metabolism, or absorption of calories. One such effective anti-obesity medication approved by FDA for long term use is Xenical (Orlistat). Xenical is the most commonly used medication to treat obesity. It reduces the amount of fat that is absorbed from the bowels. Xenical contains an active ingredient called Orlistat, which is a type of medicine called a lipase inhibitor breaks apart fat in food so that it can be absorbed into the body. Orlistat blocks the action of lipase and thereby prevents the breakup and absorption of fat. Orlistat blocks absorption of about 25% of the fat in a meal. Xenical works by preventing the absorption of fats from the human diet, thereby reducing caloric intake. It is intended for use in conjunction with a physician-supervised reduced-calorie diet. Xenical blocks some of the fat that you eat, keeping it from being absorbed by your body. Xenical capsules are available in dosage strength of 120 mg. Your doctor can prescribe this drug if you are obese, or if your BMI is higher than 28 and you have a related risk factor – such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes. A lower dose of Xenical (Orlistat) can be bought from various online pharmacies available on web. Common side-effects of Xenical include headache, urgent or increased need to open the bowels, flatulence (wind) with discharge, and oily or fatty stools. Because of potential side effects, it is recommended that you should consult your doctor for taking this anti-obesity drug.
Obesity is something that is increasingly on the rise today and will continue to rise unless we do something about it like informing people of how bad it really is and encouraging people to live a health-enhancing lifestyle. Act now and shed those extra fats before it’s too late. Let’s change the trend of obesity by living healthy lives and building towards a healthy society by promising ourselves to eat healthy food and fight obesity.