Obesity is one of the biggest health problems in the world. It is associated with several related conditions, collectively known as metabolic syndrome. These include high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and a poor blood lipid profile. People with metabolic syndrome have a higher risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes than people whose weight is within the normal range. Over the past few decades, many studies have investigated the causes of obesity and how Focused on what can be prevented or treated.
Many believe that weight gain and obesity are caused by a lack of willpower.
It is not completely true. Although weight gain is largely a result of diet and lifestyle, some people have difficulty when it comes to controlling their eating habits. The thing is, overeating is driven by various biological factors such as genetics and hormones. Some people tend to gain weight (1Trusted Source).
Of course, people can overcome their genetic disadvantages by changing their lifestyle and behavior. Lifestyle change requires willpower, dedication, and persistence. Yet, claiming that behavior is purely a function of willpower is too simplistic. They don’t take into account all the other factors that ultimately determine what people do and when they do it. Here are 6 reasons Major causes of weight gain, obesity, and metabolic disease, many of which have nothing to do with willpower.
1. Genetics
Obesity has a strong genetic component. Children of obese parents are more likely to be obese than children of lean parents.
This does not mean that obesity is completely predetermined. What you eat can have a big effect on which genes are expressed and which are not.
Non-industrialized societies develop obesity quickly when they start eating a typical Western diet. Their genes didn’t change, but the environment and the signals they sent to their genes did.
Simply put, genetic factors influence your susceptibility to weight gain. Studies on identical twins demonstrate this very well.
2. Engineered junk foods
Heavily processed foods are often little more than refined ingredients mixed with additives. These products are designed to be cheap, last long on the shelf, and taste so incredibly good that it’s hard to resist them. By making food as delicious as possible, food manufacturers are trying to increase sales. But they also promote overeating. Most processed foods today do not resemble whole foods. They are highly engineered products, designed to grip people.
3. Food addiction
Many sugar-sweetened, high-fat junk foods stimulate your brain’s reward centers. In fact, these foods are often compared to commonly abused drugs like alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, and marijuana. Junk foods can be addictive in susceptible individuals. These people lose control over their eating behavior, just as people struggling with alcohol addiction lose control over their drinking behavior. Addiction is a complex problem that can be very difficult to overcome. When you become addicted to something, you lose your freedom of choice and your brain’s biochemistry starts calling the shots for you.
4. Insulin
Insulin is a very important hormone that, among other things, regulates energy storage. One of its functions is to tell fat cells to store fat and hold on to the fat they already carry. The Western diet promotes insulin resistance in overweight and obese people. It increases insulin levels throughout the body, causing energy to be stored in fat cells instead of being available for use.
5. Certain medicines
Many pharmaceutical drugs can cause weight gain as a side effect. For example, antidepressants have been associated with modest weight gain over time. Other examples include diabetes medications and antipsychotics. These drugs do not decrease your willpower. They change the way your body and brain function, decrease metabolic rate or increase appetite.
6. Leptin resistance
Leptin is another hormone that plays an important role in obesity. It is produced by fat cells and its blood levels increase with high-fat mass. For this reason, leptin levels are especially high in people with obesity. In healthy people, high leptin levels are associated with decreased appetite. When working properly, it should tell your brain how much fat you have. The problem is that leptin doesn’t work as well in many people with obesity, because for some reason it can’t cross the blood-brain barrier. This condition is called leptin resistance. is said to be and is believed to be a major factor in the pathogenesis of obesity.