10 main causes of obesity (and what to do)

Obesity is a condition that involves excessive amounts of body fat and can be caused by excessive food consumption and lack of physical activity. However, there are also other factors that can lead to the development of obesity and that make it easier to gain weight.

Generally, obesity results from a combination of hereditary factors, such as genetic predisposition, combined with a diet rich in fats and sugars and little physical activity, leading to the accumulation of fat in the body, which can affect people at any age, including children. Know how to identify childhood obesity.

In addition to causing aesthetic concerns, obesity can lead to the development of health problems such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and even certain types of cancer, which is why you should consult an endocrinologist to assess your health status and make changes. a diet guided by a nutritionist.

Which doctor to consult?

The ideal doctor to confirm the diagnosis of obesity and initiate the most appropriate treatment is an endocrinologist.

If you are suffering from excess weight, schedule an appointment with an endocrinologist near you:

Main causes

The main causes of obesity and how to combat each of them are:

1. Food rich in sugar, fat and carbohydrates

Sugar, fat and carbohydrates are foods rich in calories, which are used as a source of energy for the body, but when consumed excessively, they are stored in the form of fat, favoring weight gain and the development of obesity. .

What to do: make changes to your diet, including a balanced diet rich in fruits, vegetables, fiber and water, as advised by your doctor and nutritionist.

Watch the video with nutritionist Tatiana Zanin with tips on balanced eating and how to lose weight healthily:

2. Lack of physical activity

Lack of physical activity is one of the main causes of obesity, especially when there is no balance between what a person eats and the calories burned per day, leading to the accumulation of fat in the body and the development of obesity.

Practicing physical activities, such as walking or swimming, for example, is essential to combat obesity, as it helps to increase the body’s metabolism, favoring energy expenditure and burning calories, facilitating weight loss.

What to do: Ideally, to lose weight, you should do 150 to 300 minutes of physical activity per week, and it is essential to have a medical evaluation before starting the exercises to assess your health status, in addition to having guidance from a physical educator to help you lose weight. avoid injuries such as tendonitis or muscle strains, for example. Check out the best exercises to lose weight.

3. Genetic predisposition

Genetics is involved in the cause of obesity, especially when parents are obese, because when both the father and mother are obese, the child has an 80% chance of developing obesity. When only 1 of the parents is obese, this risk decreases to 40% and when the parents are not obese, the child has only a 10% chance of being obese.

Even if the parents are obese, environmental factors have a great influence on weight gain. However, it may be more difficult for a teenager or adult who has been obese since childhood to maintain their ideal weight because they have a greater number of fat-storing cells that easily become full.

What to do: Practicing daily exercise and eating a low-fat diet should be part of your routine. In some cases, the doctor may recommend the use of weight loss medications or bariatric surgery, for example.

4. Changes in leptin and ghrelin levels

Leptin and ghrelin are two important hormones for regulating appetite and, therefore, when their functioning is not properly regulated, the person may feel hungrier than normal, ending up eating a greater amount of food, more often during the day. .

Leptin is responsible for reducing appetite and is produced by fat cells to indicate to the body that it no longer needs to eat in large quantities. This means that the more fat cells a person has, the more leptin will be produced. However, in obese people it is common for leptin receptors to stop working properly, which means that the feeling of satiety never reaches the brain, causing the person to continue to feel very hungry.

Ghrelin is produced in the stomach when it is empty and indicates when the person needs to eat more, because it increases appetite. Studies on people suffering from obesity have confirmed that some people, even after eating a lot, continue to produce a high amount of ghrelin, which makes the person feel hungry all the time.

What to do: To help regulate the levels of these hormones, you should avoid consuming foods rich in sugar, very fatty foods, canned and processed products, and follow a balanced diet guided by your nutritionist, in addition to practicing physical exercise regularly.

Watch the following video with other tips to regulate leptin levels and help fight obesity:

5. Hormonal changes

Hormonal diseases are rarely the exclusive cause of obesity, but around 10% of people who have one of these diseases are at increased risk of being obese: hypothalamic syndrome, Cushing’s syndrome, hypothyroidism, polycystic ovary syndrome, pseudohypoparathyroidism, hypogonadism, growth hormone deficiency, insulinoma and hyperinsulinism.

However, it is necessary to take into account that whenever a person is overweight there are hormonal changes involved, but this does not always indicate that this is the cause of obesity. Because by reducing weight these hormonal changes can be cured, without the need for medication.

What to do: control the disease that is involved in being overweight, and follow a nutritional re-education diet and exercise daily.

6. Emotional disorders

The loss of a loved one, a job or bad news can lead to a feeling of deep sadness or even depression, and these favor a reward mechanism because eating is pleasurable, but the person feels sad most of the time. time, you don’t find the energy to exercise, to be able to use up the extra calories and fat you ingested in a moment of anguish and pain.

What to do: It is important to seek help from friends, family or a therapist to overcome this sadness or depression, finding new motivation to live. Exercising is also an excellent strategy as physical effort releases endorphins into the bloodstream, which promotes a feeling of well-being. Eating foods rich in tryptophan daily is also a good help. See the complete list of foods rich in tryptophan.

7. Medicines that make you fat

The use of hormonal medications and corticosteroids also promotes weight gain and can promote obesity because they swell and can lead to increased appetite. Some medications that make you gain weight are diazepam, alprazolam, corticosteroids, chlorpromazine, amitriptyline, sodium valproate, glipizide and even insulin.

What to do: It is important not to interrupt any treatment without medical advice, and check with your doctor about the possibility of changing the medication for another.

8. Decrease in dopamine

Dopamine is a type of neurotransmitter, produced naturally by the body, responsible for the feeling of well-being, pleasure and satiety, as well as other functions such as motivation and memory, and which acts by binding to specific regions in the brain. Some studies show that when the body does not produce dopamine in sufficient quantities, it can lead the person to eat more or binge eat in an attempt to increase dopamine levels in the body, favoring weight gain or obesity.

On the other hand, some studies show that obesity can reduce dopamine receptors in the brain, which are the regions in which dopamine binds to exert its action and, even if the person has normal dopamine production, this neurotransmitter does not act appropriately, also leading to an increase in hunger as a way of compensating for the lack of dopamine action in the brain.

What to do: To increase dopamine production, it is important to exercise and eat foods such as boiled eggs, fish or flaxseed, which increase serotonin and dopamine and are responsible for giving a feeling of pleasure and well-being. In addition, the endocrinologist may also recommend the use of weight loss medications, which reduce appetite so that it is easier to follow the diet.

9. Ad-36 virus infection

There is a theory that infection by the Ad-36 virus is among the causes of obesity because this virus has already been isolated in animals, such as chickens and rats, and it was observed that these infected animals accumulated more fat. The same was observed in humans, however, there are not enough studies to prove how this virus influences obesity. What is known is that infected animals had more fat cells and these were fuller and thus sent hormonal signals so that the body accumulates and stores more fat.

What to do: Even if this theory is confirmed, to lose weight you will need to burn more calories than you consume. This only indicates the level of difficulty a person may have in losing weight and maintaining their ideal weight.

10. Other common causes

Other factors that also favor weight gain and may be related to obesity are:

• Stop smoking because the nicotine that reduced appetite is no longer present, favoring an increase in calorie intake;
• Take a vacation because it changes your daily routine and your diet tends to be higher in calories during this phase;
• Stop exercising because the body’s metabolism drops quickly, although the appetite remains the same and as a result, more fat ends up being accumulated;
• Pregnancy, due to hormonal changes at this stage, associated with anxiety and society’s ‘permission’ to eat for two, which is actually not correct.

In any case, treatment for obesity always involves diet and exercise, but the use of weight loss medications may be an option, especially for those who need bariatric surgery, for example, to reduce the risks of surgery. Find out when bariatric surgery is indicated for obesity.

What doesn’t work to lose weight

The main strategy that doesn’t work to lose weight is following a fad diet because they are very restrictive, difficult to follow and because even if a person loses weight very quickly, they will probably gain weight again as quickly as they lost weight. These crazy diets usually remove a large number of nutrients, and can leave the person sick, weak and even malnourished. Therefore, the best option is to undergo dietary re-education guided by a nutritionist.