Many factors can lead to obesity and morbid obesity. The five main causes are outlined below :

1. Poor Eating Habits
   Your eating habits can affect your weight. Failure to eat a balanced diet, eating fast-food and fatty snacks between meals can all cause obesity. Drinking too many high-calorie soft drinks can also contribute to obesity. When you eat the same amount of food that your body needs, your weight stays the same. If you get more energy from your food than you need, the body stores the excess calories as fat. If your body never uses the extra calories, you will gain weight.
2. Lack of Exercise
   Failure to exercise is a contributing factor in the development of obesity. Individuals who are overweight find it harder and harder to exercise accentuating the problem.
3. Family History
   If you have family members that are obese, then you have a higher risk for obesity. Many people report being obese since childhood. In 1994, scientists found a gene in mice that was linked to obesity. This gene produces the protein leptin, which contributes to feeling full. Mice with a defective gene eat large amounts of food. When these studies were applied to humans, the results could not be reproduced. It seems unlikely that a single gene can explain obesity. Genetic research does show that a number of metabolic processes don't work as well in obese people as they do in others. These include how fat is burned and feelings of hunger and fullness.
4. Psychological Factors
   Many individuals use food as a source of "comfort" for psychological stress. They may eat in times of grief or anxiety. After a diet fails, some people feel a sense of failure and will gain more weight than they lost with the diet. This can result in a vicious cycle of eating and dieting that will only make the person gain more weight.
5. Metabolic Disorders
   Every person has a slightly different metabolism, meaning that they use calories to a different degree of efficiency. Metabolism refers to how your body gets energy from food. Many factors affect metabolism. For instance, trouble with your thyroid gland can change your metabolism and lead to obesity or morbid obesity. Metabolic disorders are rarely the major cause of obesity, but can contribute to an individual who is otherwise susceptible.

Obesity is associated with many other health and social problems, including :

• Diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, hyperlipidemia, angina, high cholesterol levels. These all increase the chances of having a stroke and of dying prematurely and diabetes also increases the risks of kidney failure and blindness.
• Osteoarthritis, particularly of the back, hips, knees and ankles.
• Lower back pain.
• Obesity hypoventilation syndrome and Obstructive Sleep Apnea - where a person unknowingly stops breathing for periods while asleep. This leads to very restless sleep, loud snoring, daytime headaches and a risk of falling asleep during the day.
• Gallstones & gallbladder disease, gout, reflux esophagitis (heartburn)
• Urinary stress incontinence, menstrual irregularity and infertility in women
• Risks of developing various forms of cancer are increased (breast, colon, uterine).
• Depression and lack of confidence
• Social discrimination which can ultimately affect their employment opportunities and earning potential

Experts say, a sensible diet and exercise is the most effective way in controlling your weight. It is essential to not eat too much junk food and to ensure you get the basic nutrition your body needs. They say you should eat at least two portions of fruit and vegetables each day.

Despite undertaking these regimes unfortunately there are many who are unable, perhaps through a lack of will power or other debilitating conditions to lose the weight they desperately need to. The Medical Profession now know that the medical condition of morbid obesity is a complex disorder, and not simply due to over-eating. The vast majority of people living in the Western World eat more calories than they need but it is only a small proportion that relentlessly lay down every excess calorie in their fat stores. Most people have a mechanism, by which their body knows when their stores have been refilled, but there is an unfortunate group of people where this mechanism is defective, and when they eat it can be likened to filling up the bath with the overflow blocked off. It may be possible for this serious disorder to be corrected by obesity surgery and it requires a qualified obesity surgeon to give advice on this kind of weight loss treatment.

Overweight and obesity are not the same; rather, they are different points on a continuum of weight ranging from being underweight to being morbidly obese. The percentage of people who fit into these two categories, overweight and obese, is determined by Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI is a measure of weight proportionate to height. BMI is considered a useful measurement of the amount of body fat. Occasionally, some very muscular people may have a BMI in the overweight range. However, these people are not considered overweight because muscle tissue weighs more than fat tissue. Generally, BMI can be considered an effective way to evaluate whether a person is overweight or obese.

In the UK it was recently announced by the NHS - "Obese 'can be refused operations'. Forty percent of doctors agree obese patients should be refused joint surgery if resources are limited, a survey suggests.

The same proportion felt smokers and drinkers could be barred from certain procedures, the British Medical Association's magazine BMA News found. The 225 doctors polled said the NHS realistically could not treat everyone. But they said treatment could be denied only for clinical reasons, rather than because of cos"t. See full story here, as reported by the BBC - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4674594.stm

Your body-mass index ("BMI") measures your height/weight ratio. It is your weight in kilograms divided by the square of your height in meters. For instance, if your height is 1.82 meters, the divisor of the calculation will be (1.82 * 1.82) = 3.3124. If you weigh 70.5 kilograms, then your BMI is 21.3 (70.5 / 3.3124).

Am I A Candidate for Weight Reduction Surgery?
Enter your height and weight in the table below. If the corresponding number is between 35 and 60 then you may be a candidate for this procedure. If you are interested in weight reduction surgery, please contact us to discuss further.

Please note that at this time, patients with BMI greater than 35 (with medical co-morbidities) or all patients with BMI greater than 40 are candidates for Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding (Lap-Band) at the Taj Medical Group's Clinics.

According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a BMI from 18.5 to 24.9 is considered normal while a BMI of more than 25 is considered overweight. A person is considered obese if the BMI is greater than 30 and morbidly obese if the BMI is 40 or greater. In general, after the age of 50, a man's weight stabilizes and even drops slightly between the ages of 60 and 74. However, a woman's weight continues to increase until age 60 and then begins to drop.

Another measure of obesity is the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). The WHR is a measurement tool that looks at the proportion of fat stored on the waist, and hips and buttocks. The waist circumference indicates abdominal fat. A waist circumference over 40 inches in men and over 35 inches in women may increase the risk for heart disease and other diseases associated with being overweight.

Consult your physician with questions regarding healthy body weight.

The most logical approach for losing weight is to eat less, eat more sensibly, and exercise more. If you are severely obese, this approach may not be enough to ensure lasting success. Sticking to a diet and exercise plan is difficult. The decision to abandon a diet is commonly made during times of stress or anxiety. Many who lose weight gain it back quickly when the diet ends. The cycle of losing weight and gaining it back is called the yo-yo effect. While temporary weight loss can help, the yo-yo effect can also make it harder to lose weight in the future. This repeated failure of permanent weight loss leads to feelings disappointment and depression.

A physician or a dietician can help you change your lifestyle. A program of improved eating habits and exercise are critical factors in any successful weight reduction program. Recent published scientific reports (Annals of Internal Medicine - Jan 2005) document that non-operative methods alone have not been effective in achieving a medically significant long-term weight loss in morbidly obese adults. The average medical weight reduction trial is a 10-12 week study with average weight loss of 2.5 kg. The use of behaviour modification, diet and exercise show that the initial optimistic results have not been sustained. Most commercial weight loss programs (WeightWatchers, Jenny Craig, Dr. Bernstein) suffer from high dropout and failure rates. The cost of these programs contributes to frustration if a person fails to achieve their goals.

Dieting often causes depression, anxiety, irritability, weakness and preoccupation with food. The treatment goal of any treatment plan for morbid obesity should be an improvement in health, achieved by a durable weight loss that reduces life threatening risk factors and improves performance of activities of daily living.

Will Water Help Me Lose Weight?
No doubt about it; if water is one of the keys for weight loss, we all need to know. Water is basically free and extremely abundant. So, does drinking a certain quantity of water help one lose weight? Yes, in a way... read on...

Water is an irreplaceable part of your diet. Its primary function is to transport nutrients and waste about your body. Almost everything in your body is in a solution of water. The way your body grows, repairs, and functions is to first transport material to and from the places where this material is needed. Water is the medium.

Water Makes Weight Loss Possible - Weight loss involves metabolizing the tissues already present in and on your body. If you lose weight successfully, this metabolism will involve the consumption of body fat and the exclusion of skeletal muscle. Metabolizing this body fat involves transport of the fat to cells where it can be used, transport of the fat across cell barriers, breakdown and chemical reaction of the fat, and transport of waste materials out of the body. You need lots of clean water to do all of that.

Weight Loss Requires Water - Of course you know that you need to start with clean water to wash and rinse clothes in your washing machine. If you attempt to wash clothes starting with dirty clothes and dirty water, you will not get those clothes too clean. Likewise; you need lots of clean water to keep your body internally clean. Just as an automobile produces exhaust while burning gasoline, your body produces waste while burning fat. Provide your kidneys and liver with ample water to clean your body. That's a half a gallon to a gallon of water daily.

Water Does Not Make You Lose Weight - Water makes weight loss possible. For that matter, water makes life on this planet possible. Water is especially important when you are losing weight but it is not chemically involved in your weight loss process. As long as you drink enough water, weight loss will happen smoothly. Drinking lots and lots of water will have no additional benefits to your body.