Benefits of Weight Loss Surgery: 10 Facts About Obesity

Obesity is anything but rare. Across the United States, two-thirds of Americans are overweight and over 30% of Americans qualify as obese. Struggling with obesity and understanding obesity are can be very different. There are too many people living with obesity who don’t fundamentally understand the complexity of how obesity impacts their body, nor how to properly overcome obesity in a way that will allow them to move forward with a healthier lifestyle.

 Obesity is more than a body-image issue. Obesity impacts your mental health. It increases your risk of experiencing chronic disease, including heart disease, and diabetes, and even can increase your risk of developing certain types of cancer. Understanding the causes of obesity as well as the consequences of obesity is essential to developing a healthier lifestyle.

10 Facts About Obesity

Here are 10 facts about obesity that you have to know as you begin your journey to a healthier lifestyle:

1. Anyone can overcome obesity. There is no one that is destined to be obese their whole life. The longer you are overweight, the more likely you are to continue struggling with obesity. Adults who began struggling with excess weight as children are typically still struggling with excess weight as adults. However, anyone can overcome obesity. Working with a weight loss surgeon can make losing weight possible for absolutely anyone.
2. There are many factors that contribute to obesity, including a combination of lifestyle factors and genetics. The connection between family history and obesity can’t be ignored when it comes to managing your weight. If you come from a family that struggled with excess weight, you are more likely to struggle with weight as well. Some of this is also from environmental factors, however. Diet and exercise play a leading role Never Going Back to OK in your weight, but other factors like hormones and genetics can’t be completely ignored. Working with a weight loss surgeon will allow you to look at all of these factors in starting the process to overcome obesity once and for all.
3. Obesity can cause a series of complex health issues, some of which you may not expect. For example, obesity can lead to complications with pregnancy, making it more difficult to get pregnant as well as making you more likely to have a high-risk pregnancy.
4. Obesity is heavily influenced by your sleeping habits. If you are not getting enough sleep, you are likely to struggle with excess weight. Losing weight requires improving your health overall, and this includes improving your sleeping habits.
5. Mental health is heavily influenced by obesity, leading to an increased risk of depression and anxiety. Working with your weight loss surgeon to connect with support groups as you lose weight can help you to take control over your mental health, as well as your physical health.
6. While this may be an oversimplification of the complex factors involved in weight loss, it is still helpful on a basic level to have awareness of the impact of calories consumed vs. calories expended. This means to understand the difference between gaining weight, losing weight, and maintaining the weight you lost, you need to understand the right balance between how much you move and how much you eat. This is one of the areas that weight loss surgery is able to help with a lot, by reducing how hungry you are daily and also helping to enhance calorie expenditure as you lose weight.
7. Obesity is one of the leading causes of medical issues in the United States. It is more deadly than smoking and is a major factor that leads to heart disease—the number one killer of adults in the United States. As a result, people who are obese have a reduced expected lifespan in comparison to those who are not overweight.
8. Most people are aware that obesity can harm your physical health, but it can also affect your mind. One concern many people are unaware of is that obesity can actually produce memory loss. While this is very concerning, research has shown that reaching a healthy weight can improve episodic memory, even after living with obesity.
9. Obesity is the leading cause of type-2 diabetes. Type-2 diabetes falls into the category of “man-made” diseases, meaning that these are diseases that are largely a result of our lifestyle and are preventable and even reversible in some cases through weight loss and healthier living. Hypertension and high cholesterol can also be managed this way.
10. Weight loss surgery is the most effective treatment for obesity and obesity-related diseases. Losing weight with weight loss surgery is proven to be more successful than attempting to lose weight through diet and exercise alone.

If you would like to change your weight, your health, and your life, there is no reason to struggle with weight gain or obesity any longer. For more information about how to lose weight, contact our office. A consultation is the first step to getting started on your journey to a healthier way of living.