Читать книгу Intermittent Fasting For Dummies - Janet Bond Brill - Страница 54

IN THIS CHAPTER

Facing the facts about excess fat

Fighting back against heredity

Getting healthier with a more active you

If you’re overweight and have been trying to lose weight, you are far from alone. The latest national stats on dieting have found that nearly half of American adults are trying to trim their widening waistlines. This is a smart move — being overweight is harmful to your health.

According to the experts, obesity rates continue to escalate — approximately 72 percent of U.S. adults are now overweight. Add to this statistic the fact that their physical activity rates are abysmally low, and you have the perfect recipe for creating the epidemic of type 2 diabetes that plagues the United States.

Scientists differentiate between the terms overweight and obese, using the body mass index (BMI) calculation. Overweight is defined as having a BMI between 25 and 29.9. Obesity is defined as having a BMI of 30 or more. Both terms are used to identify people who are at risk for health problems from having too much body fat. However, obese generally means a much higher amount of body fat than overweight. Everyone who falls in the obese range is overweight, but not the other way around. Refer to Chapter 2 where I discuss the BMI in greater detail.

Clearly, many Americans need to lose weight. In fact, even a modest weight loss of just 10 percent of your body weight can treat and often reverse the un-healthy conditions associated with being overweight.