Obesity and Causes

• Mar 25, 2018
• posshouston

Obesity means having too much body fat. It is different from being overweight, which means weighing too much. The weight may come from muscle, bone, fat, and/or body water. Both terms mean that a person’s weight is greater than what’s considered healthy for his or her height.

Obesity is generally caused by eating too much and moving too little. If you consume high amounts of energy, particularly fat and sugars, but do not burn off the energy through exercise and physical activity, much of the surplus energy will be stored by the body as fat.

Body mass index (BMI) is the best parameter for defining obesity, determined by a person’s height and weight. BMI equals a person’s weight in kilograms (kg) divided by their height in meters (m) squared (more information will be found later in the article). Since BMI describes body weight relative to height, there is a strong correlation with total body fat content in adults: