The Serious Environmental Causes of Morbid Obesity

Morbid obesity is a chronic condition and over 9 million adult Americans are currently afflicted by it. An individual is identified as morbidly obese when his or her body weight is over 100 pounds in addition to their ideal body weight or they have a Body Mass Index of 40 or higher.

The health effects caused by morbid obesity are simply enormous and most prevalently fatal. The most common health complications of morbid obesity are high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, cardiac complications, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and respiratory complications.

The causes of morbid obesity are complex and multiple. In fact, there is no single cause identified that contributes solely to the development of morbid obesity in an individual. Rather there are multitudes of factor that affect the health condition of an individual and lead to the development of morbid obesity. These factors may include the genetic structuring of the concerned individual, metabolism, environment, socioeconomic status, culture and behavior. This article exclusively sheds light on the environmental causes of morbid obesity.

The environmental causes of morbid obesity can be widely categorized under different sub-heads such as diet, eating behavior, exercise, sedentary behavior, and lifestyle. Here we will explore how these factors influence the development of morbid obesity in an individual.

Environmental Influences on Habits and Lifestyles

Environment plays one of the leading roles in shaping an individual's habits and decisions concerning lifestyles. In practice, there is a whole host of environmental influences that may affect profoundly the life-related decisions. Modern society offers so many facilities for living life in a best possible manner. However, it does not offer it for free. In fact, it takes a significant toll for the advantages provided.

The most costly toll is to facilitate and encourage the sedentary lifestyle. In sedentary lifestyle, walking has been substituted by car driving, physical activity has been substituted by the use of technical gadgets and nutrition has been replaced by convenience food. In general consideration, sedentary lifestyles are influential environmental causes of morbid obesity. A lack of exercise along with unhealthy diet promotes significant health complications including morbid obesity.

Diet and Eating Behavior

Diet plays a significant role in any sort of obesity problem, morbid obesity is no exception. Although it is believed that the genetic makeup plays the leading role for the development of morbid obesity in an individual, the role of diet should never be underestimated. In fact, diet can be considered as one of the most important environmental causes of morbid obesity. Trend studies suggest that people become tend to consume more high-calorie food on average than they consumed in the past decades. Quite obviously, the increase in calorie intake eventually decreases the nutrient content which is an integral part of a healthy diet.

Our eating behavior is also considered as one of the most significant environmental causes of morbid obesity. Scientific studies confirm that there is a strong evidence for pilotropy which is defined by genetic correlation among different traits influencing eating behavior, basic metabolic rate and appetite regulating hormones such as insulin, ghrelin and leptin. All these hormones are directly interact with the metabolism of the body and eventually affect the body's metabolic rate significantly. Thereby, eating behavior in relation to biological predisposition may pose a serious threat towards developing morbid obesity.

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