Body Mass Index in Epidemic Assesment

Running Head: EPIDEMIC
THE EPIDEMIC OF OBESITY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

EPIDEMIC1
Introduction
Obesity is a common lifestyle disorder that is caused due to excess fat in the body. It is a
medical condition that has serious negative effects on the health of an individual. It is detected
through the Body Mass Index (BMI) that is always high when a person is suffering from obesity.
The BMI between the range of 25-30 kg/m2 is considered to be overweight/obese. It is a well-
known cause of death, and most of the time, it causes several non-communicable diseases such
as cardiovascular diseases, mental disability, musculoskeletal issues, cancers, and diabetes. This
disease is a major risk factor for all kinds of life-threatening disease, which makes obesity a
chronic condition (Gregg and Shaw 2017). An epidemic is the prevalence of a disease in a
population or a community at the same time. World Health Organization states obesity as an
epidemic because it was the leading cause of death in 2012. The major reason for obesity is an
unhealthy dietary pattern, endocrine disorders, physical inactivity, mental disorder, side effects
of medications, and genetic susceptibility. The thesis statement of this paper is the epidemic of
obesity leading to non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes
mellitus.
Body
Obesity is a common disorder in children and adults usually and sometimes it increases
from childhood to adulthood. It can be prevented through few options such as social changes and
personal choices, which is dependent on a person’s environment and their own attitude. The
improvement of diet is possible through the introduction of dietary fibers, fruits and vegetables,
low intake of sugary, energy dense foods and saturated fat. The optimum amount of physical
activity and nutritious food can help in reducing appetite and fat absorption (Hall 2018). Another

EPIDEMIC2
aspect is the use of certain medications to change the hormonal control in the body that increases
the appetite and hunger. During extreme cases, when none of these measures are useful then
surgical methods are used to reduce the length of the intestine and stomach volume that helps in
reducing the appetite. Gastric balloon is also used to treat obesity. In 2017-2018, 1 in 4 (25%)
children and adolescents in the age 2-17 were known to be obese, 1 in 3 (31%) Australian adults
were obese, and this was increased from 1 in 5 (19%) in 1996. The burden of disease was 8.4%
in Australia regarding obesity in 2015, and every 2 in 3 (67%) adults were detected obese in
2017-2018. Surgery operations related to weight loss were 22,700 in 2014-2015, which is an
increase from 9,300 in 2005-2006 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2020).
As mentioned above, obesity is related to several non-communicable diseases that are
developed in a person when they are diagnosed as obese. If the BMI of a person is between 30
kg/m2 to 35 kg/m2 then they are diagnosed with class I obesity, when it is between 35 kg/m2 to
40 kg/m2 then they are diagnosed with class II obesity, and when it is above 40 kg/m2, then they
are considered to be class III obesity. Having an excess body weight is leading cause of acute as
well as chronic conditions such as types of cancer, which could be prostate, kidney, colon, gall
bladder and liver, musculoskeletal issues such as osteoarthritis because the joints get affected due
to high body mass, including risk of fractures, premature death in children and adults, high blood
pressure, diabetes mellitus type 2, sleep apnea, asthma and mental health disorders such as
depression due to the negative effect of body shaming (Bray and Popkin 2014). It is a prevalent
epidemic that leads to death all around the world because it reduces life expectancy. World
Health Organization (WHO) expresses that obesity has increased into the amount of three since
1975, and in 2016, adults over the age of 18 are identified to be overweight at the rate of 1.9
billion, and in these 6.5 million were obese. They state that the majority of the countries around