Obesity needs to be tackled before it becomes a health issue

BY EU STUDIO

Updated Thursday, 14July2022-12:57

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Francisco Tinahones, Head of the Endocrinology and Nutrition Service at the Virgen de la Victoria University Hospital in Malaga and a member of the Obesity Policy Engagement Network (OPEN) considers that

, since there are many causes involved in this pandemic .

"It is not as simple as that we eat more and move less, but there are other factors.

Once the subject gains weight, the The tendency of our biology is to maintain that reserve. We are also affected by environmental factors, such as our own thermal comfort, the microbiota, stress, hours of sleep or little physical activity in our jobs".

Francisco Tinahones.

Head of the Endocrinology and Nutrition Service at the Virgen de la Victoria University Hospital in Malaga and member of the Obesity Policy Engagement Network (OPEN)

Prevention is possible, but not easy.

It is likely that if you have a healthy lifestyle, you will be able to maintain a healthy weight.

"A person with a low or normal calorie diet and with intense activity has little chance of gaining weight. But

In Spain in the In the last twenty years the rate has doubled and we have gone from 12 or 13% to 24%", says the expert.

sedentary children

Childhood obesity has increased in recent decades at an alarming rate.

One of the causes is the change in children's habits.

"The way of playing has changed in the last twenty years and physical activity is not part of everyday activities in children. They are much more sedentary children," says Tinahones.

To deal with this problem, parents and the family environment have a determining role.

"In childhood obesity there is an unresolved problem, and that is that the perception of an overweight child is not associated with a sick child. Moreover, the disease is related to a thin child. In the Aladino study, observed that when children were weighed and measured and found to be overweight, only one in ten parents saw it as a problem, when it was from a medical point of view.1 This misperception means that

Obesity is not perceived as a disease.

The chances of obese children becoming obese adults is very high, around 80%.

That belief that the obese child stops being so when he hits the growth spurt, does not usually happen in most cases.

Another consequence of the increase in obesity in young people is that they

.

"We are seeing adolescents with pathologies typical of other ages. It is not uncommon to find an adolescent with diabetes or hypertension, when that was unthinkable years ago," says the endocrinologist.

Resource Need

Dr. Tinahones insists on the need to provide tools for the treatment of obesity.

"Specialists need resources and a team dedicated to dealing with this problem as with any other disease. People tend to blame the person for being obese and their approach is reductionist, without taking into account that we are dealing with a disease with factors causal. Health workers also simplify being overweight. There is a tendency to blame the subject for this obesity," he says.

The first point of contact has to be primary care.

"There should be structures to manage these patients, in the same way that patients with diabetes have them. If this structure does not work, then it is necessary to refer to the figure of the specialist. It is also necessary to approach this pathology from a psychological point of view , since there are problems in the psychic sphere, such as anxiety or stress that affect them a lot. Another common factor in these patients is the brutal social stigma they suffer. "The association of obese patients is very low, often caused because they feel responsible for what happens to them.

This does not happen in other pathologies, and we must not forget that

(Skin cancer is uncontrolled sun exposure, and these patients are not blamed).

The public administrations and the ministries of health of the countries (including those on the developing path) have a fundamental role to play in treating obesity and preventing it from becoming a health problem."Not only should they deal with prevention, but also It has to be multimodal. Treatment options and strategies must be given to those who already have obesity," concludes Dr. Tinahones.

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