Prevention Is the Key to Obesity!

While many people may know it is more difficult to loose weight and keep it off, most people may not have considered their external environment has a direct affect on their weight.

Information on the American Institute for Cancer Research's (AIRC's) web site would agree - "given the health risks involved in putting on weight and the difficulty involved in losing it, prevention is the logical course."

Preventing Weight Gain Is Not as Simple as It Sounds

While not gaining weight may sound easy, preventing weight gain is more difficult than one may believe. Your environment has an influence on your weight. In fact, weight gain may be largely due to your external environment. AICR indicates your environment is a prescription for steady weight gain and this is where the term obesogenic comes in.

Obesogenic Environment

AICR explains we live in an "obesogenic" environment, and that even slender people have to take steps to avoid the gradual but incessant weight gain that otherwise seems inevitable.

Think of it this way - food is abundant and relatively cheap, so it is easy to overeat. If you are pressed for time, it's easier to choose processed foods in large servings that are full of fat, added sugar and calories. Equally hazardous, modern conveniences keeps people physically inactive.

To help people contend with an obesogenic environment, AICR has issued a brochure available on their web site entitled," Don't Let It Happen: preventing obesity in adulthood."

There Is a Reason for Everything

There are a multitude of reasons for preventing weight gain and losing those extra pounds - the most important one is for your health and well-being.

That said, in a survey conducted by the American Institute for Cancer Research, only 45 percent of the people surveyed knew that being overweight or obese increases risk of developing cancer. Yet excess weight is linked to risk of cancers of the colon, kidney, breast and endometrium.

Cancer is not the only chronic ailment linked to overweight or obesity. Excess weight increases your risk of heart disease and stroke. In addition, Type II diabetes, arthritis, gallstones, asthma, cataracts and infertility have all been linked to this problem.

Obesity Is a Greater Health Threat

Obesity is becoming a greater health threat than either smoking or alcohol abuse. This is why it's necessary you take the steps to avoid being overweight and that you limit your weight gain during adulthood to less than 11 pounds.

That said, millions of Americans are dieting. In fact, past U.S. surveys indicates approximately 45 million Americans are on a diet at any given time. Yet obesity has reached epidemic proportions.

According to AICR's brochure, everything in your environment conspires to make you gain weight. "If you consume just 100 more calories than you burn each day, you'll put on a pound in a little more than a month and 12 pounds in a little more than a year. AND, in a decade, you'll have a serious health problem."

But If Millions of People Are Dieting Why Has Obesity Reached Epidemic Proportions?

Herein lies the crux of the problem... nothing is as simple as it seems. The issues of obesity and weight loss can't be strictly equated to only your external environment. Your internal environment is also at play.

There is more to the obesity picture than what can be seen! A good book to read: Body Traps, breaking the binds that keep you from feeling good about your body, by Judith Rodin (William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York, 1992).

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