Currently, there are 101 million American classified as being overweight, 40 million classified as obese and a striking 3 million as morbidly obese. How does one become obese?
Everytime an individual consumes 1500 calories, he or she has the potential to gain one pound. Obesity occurs when a person consumes more calories than they burn. These unburned calories are stored in our body as fat. Fat are made up of fat cells. The fat cells that lead to obesity initially increase in size; when these cells can no longer expand their size, they begin to increase in number. If we do not burn these calories either by exercising or via other means, we become obese.
Obesity has the propensity to start a vicious cycle that starts with health consequences and culminates in social and economic consequences. When people become obese, they subsequently suffer from many health ailments. This state deriorates into that of depression and social isolation.