The Dangers of Obesity & Heart Disease

The entire world is affected by rising obesity statistics, and with obesity being linked to heart disease and other health issues, there is serious reason for concern.

Obesity is a condition that is determined based on a person’s body mass index (BMI). BMI is the body’s fat ratio, and is calculated using a formula that takes the height and weight of an individual into consideration.

Dangers of Obesity and Heart Disease

The Dangers of Obesity and Heart Disease

To work out your BMI, you take your weight in pounds, divided by your height in inches squared, divided by 703. The resulting total is then used against a chart to determine if an individual is underweight (18.5 or lower), at a healthy weight (18.5 – 24.9), overweight (25 – 29), or obese (30 +).

You can calculate your own BMI here, and Steve Kamb from NerdFitness has Everything You Need to Know About Body Fat Percentage.

Clinical studies have found that obesity and coronary heart disease are closely related. Obese people often tend to have a higher risk of heart disease due to a number of other health related factors, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. Clogging of the arteries is a strong contributing factor to heart disease, and is directly connected to high cholesterol. High cholesterol certainly increases the risks of heart disease in any individual, but is likely to be much higher in obese people.

People with high risks of heart disease, generally have other health issues that were once thought to contribute to the disease. Yet in recent studies, it‘s been discovered obese people still have a higher risk of heart disease, even without the other contributing factors. Since an obese person is not as active as a healthy weight individual, obesity can cause heart disease in this way as well. So exercise definitely plays a role in the prevention of heart disease.

Diet is another contributing factor to heart disease. Obese individuals tend to have a high caloric and carbohydrate diet, which can block the blood vessels and lead to heart muscle damage.

Limiting the amounts of fat, sodium and starch you consume, which are turned into fat when not burned up by the body through physical activity and exercise, you can reduce your weight and risks of heart disease significantly. Learning to eat a healthy diet will help you manage your levels of risk. The risks won’t go away completely though if damage to the vessels and heart muscles has already occurred prior to the weight loss.

Medication is available to help with the various complications of heart disease. In more extreme cases, heart bypass surgery and heart transplants may be necessary.

The most important takeaway is that you have to learn to take care of your heart and blood vessels prior to any permanent damage being caused. Once the cardio system is damaged, it isn’t possible to reverse the damage; short of surgery and transplants.

To reduce the risks of heart disease, eat a healthy diet, avoid smoking, add a daily exercise regimen to your lifestyle, and avoid stress wherever possible.

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