About one-third of Americans are extremely over-weight, which may be why crash dieting is beginning to plague America. It's estimated that Americans alone spend 80-100 billion dollars on weight loss tactics. People go on these diets to get quick results but are these results hurting them more than helping? The answer is yes! The only way to safely and effectively lose weight is through old-fashioned exercise and the right diet. You cannot successfully lose weight by simply cutting food from your diet or taking some pills, it is necessary to work for your results. Without depriving your body of necessary nutrients through dieting, you can lose fat and get the body you've always dreamed of, or at least one you're more comfortable with (Tutty, Rothery, Grinnell, 40).
Obesity, also called Corpulence or Fatness, excessive accumulation of body fat, usually caused by the consumption of more calories than the body can use. The excess calories are then stored as fat, or adipose tissue. Overweight, if moderate, is not necessarily obesity, particularly in muscular or large-boned individuals. In general, however, a body weight 20 percent or more over the optimum tends to be associated with obesity. The body's ability to adjust food intake to body needs can be disturbed by numerous factors. Of these, hormone imbalances and glandular defects are believed to be of least importance, being demonstrable in only bout 5 percent of all obese individuals (Ciliska, 16).
Although obesity may be familial, suggestive of a genetic predisposition to fat accumulation, there is also evidence that early feeding patterns imposed by the obese mother upon her offspring may play a major role in a cultural, rather than genetic, transmission of obesity from one generation to the next. More generally, the distinctive way of life of a nation and the individual's behavioral and emotional reaction to it may contribute significantly to widespread obesity......
