We often hear that there are mitigating factors that cause obesity or overweight and that, in a lot of cases, we can’t actually help being overweight or obese.
It is how we were raised…
For a lot of us, being overweight can stem from childhood.
A time when we weren’t free to make our own choices on healthier foods and were, most often, fed by parents or adults, who chose what and when we ate.
Are we making our children overweight?
A report by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) stated that almost a fifth of children in the UK today are already overweight or obese when they start primary school at the age of 4.
This shocking statistic rises to almost a third of children being overweight or obese by the time they go to secondary school at 11.
Does how much we earn mean we are more likely to be an overweight or obese family?
The report looked into the relationship between deprivation and being part of a low income family and the instances of obesity in children and is also backed up by a government study from 2017.
The government study states that children from the lowest earning, most socially deprived areas, are the ones suffering the most when it comes to obesity.
“The burden is falling hardest on those children from low-income backgrounds. Children aged 5 and from the poorest income groups are twice as likely to be obese compared to their most well-off counterparts and by age 11 they are three times as likely.”
Does being an overweight child mean we will be an overweight adult?
We know that obesity can seriously affect a child’s physical and mental health and it is shown that if a person is overweight in childhood, they are much more likely to be overweight and obese in adulthood too.
But adulthood obesity is a much more complex problem and whilst the way we are raised and the habits we pick up in childhood contribute to our weight in adulthood, there are many more trends and reasons as to why someone has become overweight or obese as an adult.
Areas such as behaviour, environment, genetics, health and even gender can be contributing factors to why we are obese or overweight.
What’s the overall picture of obesity in the UK?
A Public Health England (PHE) study undertaken in 2018 showed that almost 7 out of 10 (66.9%) adult men in the UK and 6 out of 10 (59.7%) adult women in the UK are currently overweight or obese.
To make matters a little worse, perception of weight is also something that people are not aware of, with 51.7% of overweight men thinking they are an ideal weight and 12.6% of obese men thinking they are within a healthy weight range.
Perception of weight fared a little better for women, with 30.9% of overweight women believing they were an ideal weight and only 3.8% of obese women thinking they were a healthy weight.
Does our gender make us more likely to be overweight or obese?
But perceptions aside, the fact remains that the statistics on adult obesity are growing each year and more and more of us are taking less care of our health, weight and well-being.
The PHE study looked further into the factors that can affect obesity and overweight and found that obesity in women in particular, is more than twice as common (37.6%) in a low-income family as it is in a high-income family (18.3%).
What about where we live, or our background?
When the study looked into social deprivation, it found that women and men living in deprived areas of the UK were much more likely to be obese, than those living in less deprived areas.
Another factor that can affect our likelihood of obesity is our ethnic background. In further investigation in the PHE study, they found that 53.5% of black adult women were obese, compared to 23.6% Asian adult women and 27.5% of white adult women.
And what habits make us more likely to be overweight?
There are also a number of known risk factors that we choose to adopt in our lives, that can contribute to our being overweight or obese.
These include habits such as smoking, drinking more than the recommended 14 units of alcohol per week, consuming less than the recommended 5 fruit and vegetables a day and doing less than 30 minutes of exercise a week.
In fact, the study reflected that 40% of men and 43.3% of women currently have at least one of these poorer health habits alongside being classified as obese.
The chart as a whole showed that the majority of adults who are obese also have at least one additional risk factor, and many have 2 or 3 additional risk factors, that will negatively impact their health and continue to contribute to their current state of obesity.
Some of these reasons can’t be helped, so what can we do to help our health and weight?
Ultimately, no matter our earnings, gender, ethnicity, habits or otherwise, being overweight or obese, for most of us, stems from eating too many calories and not expending enough energy to burn those excess calories off and not living a healthy lifestyle.
But, at The Slimming Clinic, we know that it is easy to gain weight and blame external factors, and we know how hard it is to break the cycle of weight gain and unhealthy habits we may have formed.
Let us help you!
That is why we employ dedicated, professional, GMC-registered doctors to ensure that you are getting the best weight loss support from an expert medical basis.
We don’t offer fad diets that promise to help you get to goal quickly. We don’t make you take up dramatic lifestyle changes that mean you give up at the first hurdle.
We offer expert-led support and advice, taking into consideration your lifestyle and goals, helping you reach your goals, safely, effectively and equipped with the tools to make the best choices for your weight loss journey.
We help you break the unhealthy habits you may have and help you develop healthier ones in their place, no matter what background, ethnicity or area you are from.