Obesity is a disease in which excess of unwanted fat gets accumulate into the body to such an extent that it may lead to negative affects on the health of individual in question It is generally defined as a BMI or body mass index (weight divided by height squared) of 30 kg/m2 or higher. This differentiates obesity from being overweight which is defined by a BMI of between 25 and 29.9kg/m2. Many studies have shown that there is a link between exceedingly high body weight and various other diseases, mainly cardiovascular diseases, sleep apnea, certain types of cancer, diabetes mellitus type 2 and osteoarthritis. As a result, obesity has been observed to cut short life of the sufferers. With the rapid rise in number of obesity afflicted adults as well as children, authorities view it as a stern public health problem. Attempts made to generate awareness about obesity include nation-wide measures to improve dietary options and increase in physical activities.

This is because overeating and lack of physical activities are the two major causes behind obesity. In the current scenario, people tend to eat a lot with so many delicious and mouth watering food stuffs available in the market. Such dishes are cooked in unhealthy manner using excessive amount of oil along with spices to make them taste and smell better. For people who are already entangled by the clutches of obesity, the smell of such food items in enough to stimulate their appetite, driving them to binge on all sort of unhealthy stuff. These items are very harmful for all overweight people as fat content present in these dishes in all probability will increase their weight further.

Moreover, when it comes to indulging in physical activities overweight people are far away. This is because they tend to get tired very soon. And why not after all they have huge body and it is always tuff to regulate it in order to burn some calories. Due to the large size of leg muscles walking, running, and cycling are the very effective means of exercising to reduce body fat. One should motivate himself or herself to indulge in these activities on short term basis to begin with. One can gradually increase the time duration for these activities provided your health and body allows you to do so. With determination and confidence one can think of losing some unwanted weight from their bodies. It is very essential for all overweight people to lose weight as it will not only make the look smarter but also prevent them from various life threatening diseases like heart diseases and cancer to name a few.

Apart from this alcohol as well as tobacco abuse are also common causes of obesity. Too much of smoking is also likely to result in people becoming overweight. Thus one should try to avoid this stuff if he or she wants live longer through sound health and fit body. Some medications are also available in the market to fight obesity and instigate weight loss process for overweight people. There are two main prescription based medications for treating obesity. One is of them is orlistat, which reduces intestinal fat absorption by inhibiting pancreatic lipase; the other is sibutramine, which is a specific inhibitor of norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine present in the brain, in that way reducing appetite. Rimonabant, a third drug, works through specific obstruction of the endocannabinoid system. It has been approved in Europe for the treatment of obesity but has not yet received approval in the United States due to fears pertaining to its safety. Weight loss with these drugs is meek, and on long-term basis mean weight loss on orlistat is 2.9 kg, sibutramine is 4.2 kg and rimonabant is 4.7 kg.