This report provides an overview of the increasing obesity problem in the UK and its impact on the health and well-being of the population. It reviews factors which contribute to the development of the obesity epidemic, and specifically looks at critical components of the diet and the role of complex carbohydrates in weight control. The scale of the problem Obesity is one of the largest and fastest growing public health problems across the world. This indicates that the obesity epidemic will not be self-limiting. If current trends continue, more than one quarter of British adults will be obese by the year 2010.
Obesity is associated with increased risk of premature death and considerable ill health.
After smoking, obesity is the most preventable cause of ill health in Britain. Top Risk factors of obesity Obesity is a multi-factorial condition, but the one indisputable fact is that energy intake must exceed energy expenditure for weight gain to occur. Epidemiological and experimental evidence have demonstrated that sedentary lifestyles and a diet containing a high proportion of fat and low proportion of carbohydrate are specific behavioural risk factors for weight gain. The marked decrease in levels of habitual physical activity in the latter half of the 20th century has been an important contributory factor to the rise in the number of people who are overweight or obese. Recent advances in molecular biology have identified a number of specific genes which are associated with increased susceptibility to obesity.