What Does Your Body Shape Tell You?

A healthy body weight is most conductive to good health. Deviations of body weight beyond certain limits are detrimental to health and also increase the risk for serious health issues. Obesity is the most common nutritional and lifestyle disorder. It is a state of excess fat accumulation in the body. Obesity develops due to positive energy balance of the body resulting from excessive calorie intake and low activity levels. Other contributory factors include family history, psychological factors such as anxiety and depression which resorts a person to eat more for emotional satisfaction, wrong eating habits such as nibbling between meals, eating at night due to insomnia and consuming low fibre, starchy and fatty foods, easy availability of junk food and social pressure and need of often eating out. Obesity leads to psychological and mechanical disabilities such as solace, arthritis, joint pains, etc and also diabetes, kidney diseases and heart problems which ultimately reduces life expectancy. In relation to body weight and health, it is important to know the body composition and distribution of fat, which determines body shape. BODY SHAPES Every woman and man has a distinct body shape. Apple-shaped obesity and pear-shaped obesity are two types of obesity. People who are apple-shaped carry the bulk around their waist, while those who are pear-shaped carry their weight in the hip or thighs. Males look like an apple and females look alike pear. From health point of view, both the apple and the pear body shapes give idea of the presence of or possibility of developing several health issues, such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, stroke and even cancer. Understanding where body fat is situated and stubbornly refuses to move, is a warning for medical conditions that require medical attention. In the pear shape, fat is accumulated around the hips and thighs and is considered less of a health risk than fat stored around the waist. The phrase 'everything I eat goes to my hips' best explains this shape. In the apple shape, fat is accumulated around the waist, abdomen and chest. Apple body shape is detrimental in terms of serious health disorders such as, heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. Normally apple-shaped obesity is found to be more dangerous than pear but after menopause the risk becomes equal for both the genders to develop diseases such as diabetes, heart problems and kidney impairments. Body Mass Index (BMI) is a measure of relative body fatness to evaluate risk factors associated with obesity. Having a BMI of 30 or more with waist circumference more than 35 cm for females and more than 40 cm for males is a major risk factor for above said diseases. Bariatric surgery is a permanent method to get rid of obesity and to prevent or resolve diseases associated with obesity for people having BMI more than 30 and those who have tried all conventional methods of weight loss such as dieting and exercise but failed. Bariatric surgery provides a platform to obese people to improve their quality and expectancy of life.