THE GENETICS OF OBESITY

The Genetics of Obesity

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract1

Introduction2

Discussion2

The Genetics of Obesity3

Medical Aspects of Overweight5

Economic Aspects of Overweight6

Counteracting Obesity at the Individual Level6

Communicating About Obesity: Opportunities and Challenges7

Conclusion9

References10

Appendix12

ABSTRACT

The paper is based on the Genetics of obesity. A detailed introduction is provided in the paper in which some statistics of obese people have been provided. The paper also deals with the detailed description of obesity that it is related with the genes. Some economic and medical aspects have also been discussed in the paper. The current available opportunities and challenges have also been discussed in the paper to provide the better understanding of the topic.

THE GENETICS OF OBESITY

Introduction

Overweight and obesity have become leading challenges for public health. Recent data show that 61% of adults in the Unites States are overweight, and 34% are obese. Canada and the United Kingdom show lower levels of obesity (about a quarter of adults are obese), but the long-term trend is similar and visible not only in developed but also developing countries: A growing number of children, youngsters, and adults are overweight. As a result, public communication on this issue has increased in the preceding years. Policymakers have coined the term obesity epidemic to label the associated challenge in a simple, illustrative, but at the same time also somewhat misleading way. (Lee, 2007)

Discussion

Obesity is commonly defined as severely overweight. This verbal definition is complemented by a quantitative specification of the boundaries between underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obesity (Yang and Kelly, 2008). The World Health Organization (WHO) and most experts in this field refer to the body mass index (BMI) as a simple indicator relating the weight of an individual to his or her height. BMI is defined as the weight in kilograms (w), divided by the square of height (h) in meters (kg/m2). To give an example in both standard and metric units: An adult who weighs 170 pounds (77 kg) and whose height is 6 feet (1.828 m) will have a BMI of 23.0.

BMI = 77 kg/ (1.828 m) 2 = 77/3.341584 = 23.0 kg/m2.

Is that underweight, normal, or overweight? Table 1 gives an answer to this question by referring to the weight classification of the WHO.

According to Table 1 (see Appendix), the person in the previous example with a BMI of 23.0 is of normal weight. The same person would be classified as overweight and pre-obese (BMI = 25.1) with a weight of 185 pounds (83.9 kg) and as obese (BMI = 30.1) with a weight of 221 pounds (100.24 kg).

Anyone not familiar with their own BMI or with the metric units or without a calculator at hand can use one of the many online BMI calculators that make it easy to determine this index using both standard and metric units (Anthony, 2005)

The Genetics of Obesity

Although rare obesity syndromes caused by mutations in individual genes have been described, by far the greatest proportion of obesity in humans is not due to mutations in individual genes. Genetic predisposition may not be health destiny, but ...