Why am I overweight?

We all know that being overweight to any degree has an adverse affect your health and can even lead you to an early grave, so it’s important to face up to the issue and tackle it head on. However, usually when someone accepts that they have an issue with their weight, they soon start questioning how they got to this point in the first place. It is important to consider these factors to get your head around emotional factor that could impede your progress. Recent studies have shown, that being overweight as a child leads to many health issues and more often than not means that when that particular child reaches adulthood they will be overweight and struggle with weight loss. This information is very concerning, as childhood obesity is on the rise in the UK.

Many people are quick to point the finger at their genes or claim that they have an under-active thyroid, rather that ask themselves "Why am I overweight?". But the truth is obesity nearly always caused by two simple factors: 1. an unhealthy diet (high energy processed foods, sugars and fats but not enough fresh food, fiber or carbohydrate) and not doing enough exercise to burn off the calories consumed in the daily food intake.

Apart from not giving us the shape we desire, being overweight or obese can have profoundly negative affects on your health. One of the scariest possibilities is the increased risk of type 2 diabetes which affects insulin resistance and is historically only a disease seen in later life in adults. Ever increasingly in the world today children there are adults under 20 that are developing type 2 diabetes as a result of being extremely overweight. Also being overweight can put extra strain on your heart kidneys and liver, not to mention your joints. Plus, there are the obvious psychological effects leading to depression and self-confidence.

In the UK, almost 30% of children and young adults are now overweight and the research suggests the main problem is the serious lack of exercise children that children do these days. There is too much “sofa entertainment” available, such as Xbox, PS3 and streaming movies. Children don’t just go out and play anymore. In additional factor, a lot of overweight children come from an overweight family, but this is due to their lifestyle habits – not genes!

What you can do about being overweight

Managing your weight loss can actually be a fun family activity. Why not use our weight loss calculator and work out the target calorie intake for everyone in the family, and then you can start making changes to your life-style today. You could even mark up the time frames and weight loss goals on the a calendar or wall chart.

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