Obesity
Obesity can be as defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health. A crude population measure of obesity is the body mass index (BMI), a person’s weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of his or her height (in metres). A person with a BMI of 30 or more is generally considered obese. A person with a BMI equal to or more than 25 is considered overweight.
Obesity is a major risk factor for a number of chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Once considered a problem only in income-high countries, obesity is now dramatically on the rise in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in urban settings.
A Healthy Diet
A good diet is important for our health and can help us feel our best - but what is a good diet? Apart from breastmilk as food for babies, no single food contains all the essential nutrients the body needs to stay healthy and work properly. For this reason, our diets should contain a variety of different foods, to help us get a wide range of nutrients that our bodies need. This is illustrated by the UK’s healthy eating model – the Eatwell Guide.
A healthy diet should provide us with the right amount of energy (calories or kilojoules), from foods and drinks to maintain energy balance. Energy balance is where the calories taken in from the diet are equal to the calories used by the body. We need these calories to carry out everyday tasks such as walking and moving about, but also for all the functions of the body we may not even think about. Processes like breathing, pumping blood around the body and thinking also require calories.
So, foods and drinks provide the calories we need to go about our daily lives, but consuming more calories than we need over a period of time will cause weight gain. This is because, any extra calories we consume but we don’t use, will just be stored as fat.
Over 50% of adults in the UK are overweight or obese. There is also a huge concern about childhood obesity, where 1 in 3 children aged 4-5, and 1 in 5 children aged 10-11, are overweight or obese.
Eating only as many calories as you need will help to maintain a healthy weight. However, the foods and drinks you choose need to be the right ones, and in the right proportions to stay healthy.
source: www.nutrition.org.uk
DLS - Obesity & Healthy Nutrition Workshop Information
Date: THURSDAY 12TH SEPTEMBER 2019
Time: 11:00AM - 1:30PM
Venue: Edmonton Green Library ( 1st floor), 36-44 South Mall, N9 0TN
Speaker: Jane (British Obesity Society)
All our workshops include:
- Free Refreshments
- Free Blood Pressure Checks
- Networking Opportunities