The Challenges of Obesity and Weight Control infographic description

The infographic is titled, Thinking Critically About: The Challenges of Obesity and Weight Control. The learning objective question 11-4 reads, how does obesity affect physical and psychological health? What factors are involved in weight management? The infographic shows the challenges of obesity and weight control under three sections. The first section titled, Obesity and Its Health Effects shows a fat woman eating a donut. Text alongside reads, Obesity is associated with: physical health risks, including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, gallstones, arthritis, and certain types of cancer (Kitahara et al., 2014); increased depression, especially among women (Haynes et al., 2019; Jung et al., 2017; Rivera er al., 2017); bullying, outranking race and sexual orientation as the biggest reason for youth bullying in Western cultures (Puhl et al., 2015).

A line graph alongside shows the percentage overweight in 195 countries studied (GBD, 2017). The line graph is superimposed on a world map. The horizontal axis plots years ranging from 1975 to 2015, in increments of 5. The vertical axis ranges from 20 to 50 percent, in increments of 5. The line representing women starts from (1980,30) and ends at (2015,38). The line representing men starts from (1980,29) and ends at (2015,37). Three callouts corresponding to the graph read as follows. Zero countries decreased their obesity rate. Since 1975, the worldwide obesity rate has nearly tripled (NCD, 2016). In the U S, adult obesity has more than doubled and child-teen obesity has quadrupled (Flegal et al., 2010, 2012, 2016). Variations are huge, from 10 percent in North Korea to 84 percent in Tonga.

Next to the graph, the illustration shows a weighing scale below a caption that reads, Body Mass Index (B M I). A pointer divides the scale into two equal halves, the section on the left is labeled 25 plus, overweight. The section on the right is labeled 30 plus, obese. Text below reads, See how your B M I compares to others in your country and in the world at tiny u r l dot com slash Give My B M I.

A question in the second section reads, How did we get here? Does obesity reflect a simple lack of willpower, as some people presume? (NORC, 2016b) No. Many factors contribute to obesity.

The second section shows several rounded fat cells. The Physiology Factors are as follows.

Storing fat was adaptive: This ideal form of stored energy carried our ancestors through periods of famine. People in some impoverished places still find heavier bodies attractive, as plumpness signals affluence and status (Furnham and Baguma, 1994; Nettle et al., 2017; Swami, 2015); In food-rich countries, the drive for fat has become dysfunctional (Hall, 2016).

Set point and metabolism matter: Fat (lower metabolic rate than muscle) requires less food intake to maintain than it did to gain; If weight drops below set point or settling point, the brain triggers more hunger and a slowed metabolism; Body perceives STARVATION; adapts by burning fewer calories. Most dieters in the long run regain what they lose on weight-loss programs (Mann et al., 2015);

After 30 weeks of competition on T V’s The Biggest Loser, 6 years later only 1 of 14 contestants had kept the weight off. On average, they regained 70 percent of what they lost, and their metabolism remained slow (Fothergill et al., 2016).

Genes influence us: Lean people seem naturally disposed to move about, burning more calories than energy-conserving overweight people, who tend to sit still longer (Levine et al., 2005);

Adoptive siblings’ body weights are uncorrelated with one another or with their adoptive parents, instead resembling their biological parents’ weight (Grilo and Pogue-Geile, 1991);

Identical twins have closely similar weights, even if raised apart (Hjelmborg et al., 2008; Plomin et al., 1997). Much lower fraternal twin weight correlation suggests genes explain two-thirds of our varying body mass (Maes et al., 1997);

More than 100 genes have been identified as each affecting weight in some small way (Akiyama et al., 2017).

The third section shows Environmental Factors. An illustration shows that sleep deprivation leads to increased Ghrelin – appetite-stimulating stomach hormone and decreased Leptin – reports body fat to the brain. The corresponding text reads, Sleep loss makes us more vulnerable to obesity (Keith et al., 2006; Nedeltcheva et al., 2010; Taheri, 2004; Taheri et al., 2004); Social influences: Our own odds of becoming obese triple if a close friend becomes obese (Christakis and Fowler, 2007); Food and activity levels: Worldwide, we eat more energy-dense foods and we move less, with 31 percent of adults (including 43 percent of Americans and 25 percent of Europeans) now sedentary—averaging less than 20 minutes per day of moderate activity such as walking (Hallal et al., 2012).

A side note reads, with weight, as with intelligence and other characteristics, there can be high levels of heritability (genetic influence on individual differences) without heredity explaining group differences. Genes mostly determine why one person is heavier than another. Environment mostly determines why people today are heavier than people were 50 years ago.