Obesity: Nature, Scale, and Determinants

Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH 1
Public Health
Student’s Name
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PUBLIC HEALTH 2
Introduction
Obesity is a medical situation which happens when an individual carries excess body fat
or weight which may impact their health. It is influenced by individual lifestyle choices since
when people use large meals high in refined grains, unhealthy fats, sugary drinks and red meat
they play the most prominent role in obesity. Avoiding physical activity also influences weight
gain since the energy gained by eating food is stored in the form of fats. On the other hand,
obesity is determined by social determinants like genetics whereby if parents are obese it is most
likely for some children to be overweight. Moreover, financial stress will make a person eat
unhealthy food which will eventually contribute to excess weight. This essay will cover the
nature and scale of obesity issue along with its critical behavioural risk factors, determinants of
obesity and how they relate along with a clear and well-constructed analysis whether obesity is
personal and social/government responsibility.
Describe the nature and scale of the obesity issue and its critical behavioural risk factors:
unhealthy diets and physical inactivity.
Obesity is a heterogeneous illness where environmental, genetic and psychological along
with other factors are involved. Generally, the medical profession believes that there are two
types of obese people such as those individuals who become overweight due to overeating or
under-exercising and those whose adiposity is not closely associated with diet. This second type
of people is believed to be caused by constitutional or an endocrine abnormality of the cells
which somehow reduces the rate of intracellular oxidations (Schwartz et al., 2017).
The initial scientific support of the hypothesis that obesity was frequently of endogenous
origin came with the finding that few of the obese individuals had an abnormally low basal
metabolic rate on the grounds of body weight (Schwartz et al., 2017). Consequently, it was
shown that the expenditure of energy is proportional to the surface area, but not the weight and
most of those people have a standard basal metabolic rate. Later researchers maintained that a
common cause of endogenous obesity was found in a lessened appropriate dynamic response to
food (Schwartz et al., 2017). However, the increase in metabolic rate caused by food is relatively
small for a technique possessed of a high degree of accuracy which is required to deal
quantitatively with the obesity phenomenon.
Concerning the scale of obesity issue, the figure of individuals who are overweight is
increasing swiftly globally making obesity one of the quickest developing public health issue.

PUBLIC HEALTH 3
The worldwide incidence of pediatric obesity elevated to 5 per cent amidst 1975 and 2016. The
escalation happened even as the occurrence of pediatric underweight declined moderately
although prevailed at 8 per cent (Yanovski, 2018). In Australia, obesity is a significant public
health issue wherein 2014-2015 a swaying per cent of 63.4 of Australian adults were obese or
overweight. This indicates an escalation from 1995 which was 56.3 per cent exemplifying that
the issue is getting bad (Hardy et al., 2017).
The incidence of extreme obesity among Australian adults has almost multiplied through
the duration of 1995 and 2014-2015 from 5 to 9 per cent. In 2014-2015, 71 per cent of men were
obese or overweight when compared to women with 56 per cent (Denham et al., 2016).
However, a more significant proportion of 42 per cent of men than 29 per cent of women was
overweight and not obese while a corresponding portion of 28 per cent of men and 27 per cent of
women were obese. The rates of obesity in Australia has increased dramatically specifically in
the last twenty years. Its incidence is 2.5 times extortionate now when compared to that of 1980.
Furthermore, the rate of childhood obesity in Australia is at one of the outrageous amongst the
developed countries. Here, 25 per cent of Australian children are presently obese or overweight
(Smith & Smith, 2016).
Physical inactivity is a fundamental behavioural risk factor of obesity since if the body is
not active enough the energy given by the food eaten and the additional kilojoules are reserved as
fats which result in overweight. It is recommended that people should involve themselves in
exercises like participating in community or social work or taking at least two-and-a-half hours
of moderate-intensity aerobic activity like walking and cycling in every week (Leech,
McNaughton & Timperio, 2015). These exercises will make the body active, and it will help in
burning the excess fats in the body hence preventing excess weight gain.
Moreover, unhealthy diets like eating large amounts of fast or processed foods which are
high in sugar and fats contribute to abnormal weight gain. Drinking too much alcohol is also
linked to obesity since alcohol contains too many calories (Leech, McNaughton & Timperio,
2015). Another form of poor diet is drinking several sugary drinks like fruit juice along with soft
drinks and eating larger portions when with friends and relatives especially if they are
overeating.