“If you don’t lose weight today, you’ll regret it tomorrow.” Many friends start a crash diet as summer approaches. But those who have gone through weight loss know that the hardest part isn’t how to lose weight or what to eat, but how to withstand each night of dieting.
After all, losing a pound feels like a struggle, while gaining a pound feels like a breeze.
What harms can being overweight cause?
01
Cardiovascular diseases
Being overweight can increase the burden on the heart, decrease blood supply capacity, and raise the risk of heart disease. Therefore, overweight individuals have a significantly higher probability of complications such as coronary heart disease, arrhythmias, heart failure, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia compared to those of normal weight.
02
Musculoskeletal diseases
Being overweight can easily lead to osteoarthritis, gout, and other conditions, and prolonged excess weight can cause swelling, inflammation, and even deformation of the joints.
03
Respiratory diseases
Overweight individuals may experience airway compression due to obesity, leading to airway narrowing, chest tightness, difficulty breathing, and snoring. In severe cases, this can be accompanied by difficulties in breathing during sleep or sleep apnea syndrome.
04
Endocrine disorders
Being overweight can lead to diabetes because overweight individuals tend to develop resistance to their own insulin’s ability to lower blood sugar, resulting in elevated glucose levels. Moreover, excess weight may trigger metabolic syndrome, leading to high uric acid levels, fatty liver, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension.
05
Urinary system diseases
Being overweight increases the risk of kidney disease. With increased blood volume due to excess weight, blood pressure rises, which can easily cause damage to the glomeruli and long-term kidney function impairment.
06
Other diseases
Being overweight is a common cause of infertility; overweight women often experience irregular menstruation and abnormal hormone levels. Furthermore, excess weight can affect mental health and quality of life, leading to feelings of inferiority and reluctance to communicate, which may eventually result in depression, anxiety, and other psychological issues over time.
How to determine if one is overweight
Many people use weight as a standard to measure whether they are obese and even believe that the lighter one is, the better. This is a misguided notion. To determine if one is overweight, three indicators should be monitored: BMI, waist circumference, and body fat percentage.
BMI: BMI = weight (kg) ÷ height (m)². Generally, a BMI index between 18.5 and 23.9 is considered normal weight, 24 to 27.9 is overweight, and 28 and above is deemed obese, as shown in the table below:
