Causes of Being Overweight

There is no easy answer as to why someone is overweight. It does not simply mean that the person eats to excess, although that contributes to the problem. Never before in history have so many cases of obese and overweight people been reported. The increase in weight gain for the general population has had an alarming increase and has reached epidemic proportions. In fact, studies have shown that one in three people in the United States are overweight, and one in three are obese. Where once it was common to have nutrient deficiencies in our diets, today excesses and imbalances in our food intake has lead to our overweight population increase.

Basically, the cause of being overweight is when someone consumes more food than their bodies can process for energy. This means that you are eating too much and not expending the energy produced by your body in physical activity, so the excess is stored as fat. Having too much fat results in you being overweight or obeses. In short, too much food-not enough exercise.

This however is not the whole problem. In the past overweight people were stereotyped as people who ate too much and were lazy. Recently doctors have discovered that being overweight or obese may be influenced by heredity-it may run in families. Therefore being overweight may not be caused just by your eating or exercise habits.

Other factors that could influence your weight problems may be the result of your metabolism rate, environment, behavior, the culture you live within or your socio-economic status. Some medications and medical conditions can also contribute to you being overweight. Your behavior and the environment that you live in can play a major role in what causes you to be overweight. The good news is that these factors can be dealt with and changed to enable you to get control of the problem.
Here is a list of common causes for being overweight:

• Over-eating
• Pregnancy or recent child birth (many mothers retain weight after giving birth)
• Aging (the aging population is often less active, and may have metabolism changes due to age)
• Appetite changes
• Having a high fat diet
• Having a high carbohydrate diet
• Smoking/ or quitting smoking
• Excessive snacking
• Reduced exercise
• Having a sedentary lifestyle
• Lifestyle changes (which can lead to stress and over-eating)
• Your body’s reaction to previous dieting (Yo-yo dieting)
• Stress
• Depression or depressive disorders
• Compulsive eating
• Genetics
• Water retention problems or Edema (your body may retain water which is not really true weight gain)
• Premenstrual bloating
• Heart problems

As you can probably tell from the list, many of the causes of being overweight can be corrected by changes in your eating habits or through lifestyle changes.

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