Appetite dysregulation

The desire for food intake is important in addressing energy and metabolic needs for survival of the organism.

Self‐regulation of appetite involves a complex interaction between multiple domains, including cognitive, neural, social, and goal‐directed behaviors and decision‐making.

Appetite and feeding are controlled by two interacting systems: a homeostatic system, which ensures that a person gets enough calories to survive, and a hedonic system, which regulates the pleasure and reward aspects of eating.

Dysregulation of appetite may either contribute to cachexia or obesity. Cachexia causes weight loss and increased mortality. It affects more than 5 million persons in the United States. Clinically, cachexia manifests with excessive weight loss in the setting of ongoing disease, usually with disproportionate muscle wasting.

Obesity is a chronic metabolic disease characterized by an increase of body fat stores. It is a gateway to ill health, and has become one of the leading causes of disability and death, affecting not only adults but also children and adolescents worldwide. Study shows that low levels of physical activity are associated with dysregulation of energy intake and fat mass gain over 1 year.
Appetite dysregulation

Obesity in western world

Obesity is a major public health and economic problem of global significance. Prevalence rates are increasing in all parts of the world, both in affluent Western countries and in poorer nations.

As developing countries have become wealthier, adopted increasingly Westernized lifestyles characterized by increases in energy intake and reductions in energy expenditure and witnessed massive migration from rural to urban areas, obesity inevitably followed in the wake of these developments. Adult obesity rates are highest in the United States, Mexico, New Zealand and Hungary, while they are lowest in Japan and Korea.

Obesity rates are projected to increase further by 2030, and Korea and Switzerland are the countries where obesity rates are projected to increase at a faster pace. Education and socio-economic background affect obesity. Reciprocally, obesity damages labour market outcomes that, in turn, contribute to reinforcing existing social inequalities.

In the United States, there has been a dramatic increase in the prevalence of obesity in recent decades. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 34.9% of American adults are obese, and this number is projected to rise further.

Obese people are at an increased risk of developing many medical problems. Overweight and obesity carry serious implications for psychosocial health, mainly due to prejudice against fatness, particularly female fatness, which is widespread. Obese people have poorer job prospects compared to normal-weight people, they are less likely to be employed and have more difficulty re-entering the labour market.

Obese people are less productive at work due to more sick days and fewer worked hours, and they earn about 10% less than non-obese people.

Although there are many causes of obesity and some are very complex, only a very limited number of cases are caused by genetic factors, medications, or acquired medical conditions. The vast majority of obesity in the United States is caused by overeating coupled with decreased exercise.
Obesity in western world

Weight Gain Due To Environmental Factors

Weight Gain Due To Environmental Factors
Our culture has established the perfect environment for weight gain. Food is abundant and accessible at home, at work and everywhere in between.

Food is at the center of our social gatherings, from birth to death. All too often indulging means a heaping plate of nutritionally depleted, fat and sugar-laden processed food.

To make matter worse, portion sizes, like our waistbands, keep expanding.

In the 1960s, a family sized soft drink bottle was 26 ounces, allowing for four servings, each 6.5 ounce. Today, in many restaurant and theatres, a “small” serving of soda is 16-20 ounces.

Muffins and bagels have double in size since the 1970s, and portion sizes of many entries have also swelled.

Consumers are lured by supersizing- the offer of much more food for just a little extra money. The bargains are irresistible. For a mere 25-50% more money, you can often receive 100-300% more food.

The problem is that when we are served larger portions, we eat more. It’s human nature.

In addition, most of us have sedentary jobs, and in our spare time we watch television, play video games, or surf internet.

Every possible convenience has been developed to help save us time and energy.

In this environment,, staying slim seems greater challenge than becoming overweight or obese.
Weight Gain Due To Environmental Factors

Juice diet for weight loss

Juicing is simply defined as the process of extracting juices from vegetable or fruit plant tissues.

Juicing takes all of the vitamins and by extracting the juice, and is often easier on the digestive system as the body can absorb the nutrients at a faster rate.

Juicing can be an important part of a successful weight loss program because most of the people have impact digestion as a result of making less than optimal food choices.

Juicing helps promote weight loss in a variety of ways. First, by replacing one or two unhealthful meals or snacks per day with a glass of fresh juice, it will significantly lower body daily calorie intake.

Juicing may also help to remove accumulated toxins and waste in body fat cells that contribute to significant health problems such as liver dysfunction and obesity. It also functions to regenerate and repair body tissues.
Juice diet for weight loss

Vegetable juice and obesity

Obesity is becoming more and more a problem in developed countries and among privileged community. As poor dietary habits and physical inactivity have become endemic, national obesity rates have soared.

In simplest terms, it is caused by persistent consumption of more calories than are required to meet the energy expenditure of that particular person. By drinking vegetables juice that are low in calories instead of higher calories foods may useful in helping lower calorie intake.

Many obesity prevention interventions have focused on increasing fruit and vegetable servings per day, decreasing consumption of fat and limiting soda intake.

It is thought that the consumption of fruits and vegetables might lead to greater satiety due to their high dietary fiber and hence decrease total caloric intake.

Vegetable juice contain lots of nutrient and antioxidants that help to burn and remove body fat. They boosts the immune system, remove acid wastes and balance the metabolism.

Vegetable juice has been used to fight rheumatic, toxic, and degenerative conditions, including cancer, kidney problems, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension and high cholesterol.
Vegetable juice and obesity

Physical Factors in Obesity

It seems certain people require more physical activity and fewer calories to maintain a healthy body weight than their peers.

This is sometimes referred to as a slow metabolism. In the face of food abundance and a sedentary lifestyle, such are at greater risk for overweight, obesity and chronic disease.

Extremely low calorie diets serve only to make matters worse as they signal the body to move into conservation mode, further showing metabolism.

Yet while a slow metabolism is a reality for some people, may others mistakenly believe that the blame for their problem rests here.

Obesity researchers have found that, in truth, overweight and obese people commonly consume double the number of calories that they believe they are eating. For most people, overeating trumps a slow metabolisms when it comes to weight gain.

Less commonly, overweight and obesity are triggered buy medications or endocrine disorders such as hypothyroidism (an underactive thyroid reduces metabolic rate).

While such causes are relatively rare, they do occurs and can make it extremely difficult or succeed at weight loss.

Another factor that is just beginning to emerge as a major player is appetite control. When our appetite control center is overwhelmed, desensitized or otherwise impaired, the system can be thrown off balance, resulting in weight gain.
Physical Factors in Obesity

The Burden of Diseases in the Developing World

The Burden of Diseases in the Developing World
Hunger and malnutrition remain among the most devastating problems facing the majority of the world’s poor and needy people, and continue to dominate the health of the world’s poorest nations.

Nearly 30% of humanities are currently suffering from one or more of the multiple forms of malnutrition.

The tragic consequences of malnutrition include death, disability, stunted mental and physical growth and as a result, retarded national socioeconomic development.

Some 60% of the 10.9 million deaths each year among children aged less than five years in the developing world are associated with malnutrition.

Iodine deficiency is the greatest single preventable cause of brain damage and mental retardation worldwide, and is estimated to affect more than 700 million people, most of them located in the less developed countries.

Over 2000 million people have iron deficiency anemia.

Vitamin A deficiency remains the single greatest preventable cause of needless childhood blindness and an increased risk of premature childhood mortality from infectious disease, with 250 million children under five years of age suffering from subclinical deficiency.

Intrauterine growth retardation, defined as birth weight below the 10th percentile of the birth weight for gestational age reference curve, affects 23.8% or approximately 30 million newborn babies per year, profoundly influencing growth, survival, and physical and mental capacity in childhood.

It also has major public health implications in view of the increased risk of developing diet related chronic disease later in life.

Given the rapidity with which traditional diets and lifestyles are changing in many developing countries, it is not surprising that food insecurity and undernutrition persist in the same countries where chronic disease are emerging as a major epidemic.

The epidemic of obesity with its attendant comorbidities – heart disease, hypertension, stroke and diabetes – is not a problem limited to industrialized countries.

Children are in a similar situation; a disturbing increase in the prevalence of overweight among this group has taken place over the past 20 years in developing countries as diverse as India, Mexico, Nigeria and Tunisia.

The increasing prevalence of obesity in developing countries also indicates that physical inactivity is an increasing problem in those countries well.
The Burden of Diseases in the Developing World

The Obesity Battle

The Obesity Battle
Americans have more choices when it comes to food than anyone else on the planet.

While we are constantly seduced by hot fudge sundaes, double cheeseburgers, stuffed-crust pizza and deep-fried doughnuts, we are expected to be as lean as the models that grace the covers of fashion magazines.

How many people have the willpower to resist temptation time and time again?

A small minority, it would seem. In 2005, approximately two thirds of the Americans adult population was classified as overweight or obese, with about one third fitting into the overweight category and the other third being obese.

The harsh reality is that fewer than one third of Americans have healthy body weights.

Overweight and obesity come with a hefty price tag - $100 billion a year in medical bills and more than 400,000 premature deaths each year.

Excess body fat causes unwanted changes to the basic functioning of the human body, adversely affecting blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, respiration, fertility, skin and joint health, hormones and insulin action.

Such changes significantly increase the risk for debilitating and often fatal health conditions, including the following:

• Cancer
• Gallbladder disease
• Gout
• Heart disease and stroke
• Kidney disease
• Osteoarthritis
• Sleep apnea
• Type 2 diabetes

To add insult to injury, a recent report found that being obese affectively ages a person by 20 years (in terms of physical health).

That puts an obese 30 year old in the same risk group as a normal weight 50 year old for developing serious medical problems.
The Obesity Battle

Dietary Fiber

Dietary Fiber
Recognition of dietary fiber as an important food component was reawakened in the mid 1970s. Since the simple notion that “roughage” relieves constipation has been replaces by the concept of an active dietary fiber with its many possible implications for general health. Result from the extensive research devoted to the dietary fiber during the last 15 or so years have suggested this food component may be quiet important in the prevention and management of a wide variety of disease states. Not surprisingly, fiber has been implicated as important in various aspect of bowel function. The metabolic diseases, diabetes and obesity, are believed by some researches s to be more easily regulated with high fiber and fiber supplemented diets. Fiber has also has been implicated in the control or prevention of variety of carcinomas as well as certain diseases affecting the cardiovascular system.

The varying aspects of the fiber observed by researches are related to the fact that dietary fiber is made up of different compositions, each with its own distinctive characteristics. Delineation of these many components plus their various, distinctive characteristics emphasizes fact that dietary fiber cannot be considered a single entity.

Food components figures of fiber traditionally have referred to crude fiber, primarily cellulose, rather than being inclusive for the various component making up dietary fiber.
Dietary Fiber

Low sugar soft drinks can improve young people's diets

The recent publication of the National Diet and Nutrition Survey of young people (aged 4 - 18 years) in the United Kingdom has given all of those interested in food, health and diet a new databank of statistics to analyse and interpret.

Undertaken as part of a programme which will cover all age groups, this survey provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the dietary habits, nutrient intakes and nutritional status of British young people.

At a time when childhood obesity, dietary disorders and the quality of childrens' diet receive widespread media coverage, it is perhaps some comfort to know that few British children are likely to suffer from the quantity or content of their diet. Of far more concern is the fact that they are getting far too little exercise, particularly once they reach their teens.

Of course, the key issue is the balance of the diet, rather than simply the amount of energy consumed, and it is here that the survey provides some very interesting findings.

Boys derived 51.6% of their energy intake from carbohydrates while girls get 51.1% of their energy intake from this source. However the nature of these carbohydrates leaves room for some improvement. Simple sugars (NMES - Non-Milk Extrinsic Sugars) accounted for 16.7% of energy intake for boys and 16.4% for girls - this exceeds the recommended average of 11% set by COMA (Committee for Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy).

The main source of NMES intake is carbonated soft drinks which account for almost a quarter of NMES in older boys and girls. A switch to low or no sugar soft drinks could have a significant impact, not least on the incidence of dental caries.

Carbonated soft drinks are by far the most popular beverages among young people, with full sugar products consumed by three quarters of the survey sample, though market figures show that juice drinks are gaining significant 'share of throat'.

New low and no sugar products in the soft drink sector provide the opportunity to reduce extrinsic sugars without compromising on taste, which is very important in gaining product acceptance among children and teenagers.

For example, Britvic's new Juice Up in Smooth Orange, Sunshine Tropical and Cool Berry Flavours contains 17% fruit juice, 8% skimmed milk and 17% of the RDA for calcium (per 200ml). But it contains no added sugar and is sweetened with aspartame.
Low sugar soft drinks can improve young people's diets