Causes of excess weight (obesity)

If you're someone who's battling a weight problem or are just fearful that you could face excess weight in the future, one of the first steps to overcoming this problem and putting your mind at ease is learning what causes excess weight to occur.

Obesity rates are growing at an alarming trend right now and many people simply don't realize how their daily lifestyle habits are contributing to this problem.
Let's take a deeper look into what causes excess weight to accumulate on the body so that you can gain a better idea of exactly what you must do in order to turn this problem around.

The Calorie Balance Equation

The real reason why weight gain occurs regardless of what the situation is will be due to a miss-match in energy consumption with energy expenditure. Simply put, if you consume more energy than your body burns off over the course of the day to maintain all vital life functions (breathing, digesting food, keeping your heart beating, etc) along with all the physical movements you make, you will gain weight.

A calorie surplus over the course of a single day may not prove to be much of a problem but over time it really will add up. It takes the accumulation of 3500 calories consumed over and beyond what you've burned off to equate to a one pound fat gain.

So, for those who have 10 pounds of excess weight, this means that over the course of time they've eaten 35,000 calories more than they've burned off.

Factors That Cause A Calorie Surplus

Now, there are many different factors that can shift the calorie balance scale against your favour. Anything that causes you to either consume more food or burn fewer calories has the potential to cause excess weight development.

Let's look at a few of these factors in more detail right now.

Poor Food Choices

Perhaps the single biggest contributor to excess weight is poor diet choices. Rather than choosing wholesome foods that are made in nature, we're turning to foods that are overly processed and are high in calories, fat, and sugar.

This not only causes our calorie intakes to skyrocket making it next to impossible to burn off what we've consumed, but it also make our blood sugar levels fluctuate which only causes us to deal with ongoing hunger throughout the day. This hunger then brings about more eating and the cycle continues.

Along with poor food choices, alcohol consumption will also increase the calorie balance as alcohol provides no nutritional value for the body but yet contains 7 calories per gram.

Lack Of Physical Activity

The second biggest factor contributing to obesity is lack of physical activity. This isn't just gym exercise either. On the whole we are moving less and sitting more.

Everything is becoming automated which means now more than ever we don't have to move if we don't want to. Everything can be accomplished with the click of a mouse or the push of a button.

Less movement means fewer calories burned therefore reducing the calories out side of the equation.

Loss Of Muscle Mass

This lack of physical activity will also promote the loss of lean muscle mass in the body and your muscle tissue is the tissue that burns the most at rest. When you experience a loss of lean muscle, you'll burn fewer calories each day and this means you'll have to eat even less food to account for this.

Most people don't cut back on their food intake, thus they gain weight.

Thyroid Disorders

Finally, the last reason for excess weight is medical. Those who are suffering from thyroid disorders, notably hypothyroidism, have a thyroid gland that is functioning improperly and won't be keeping your body burning calories as quickly as it normally should.

This then leads to fewer calories burned and when you contrast that to how many calories you're taking in, again the equation shifts towards the excess consumption direction.

Thyroid disorders are fortunately easy to fix in most cases with medication, so if you think this is at play you should seek help from your doctor.

So there you have all the primary reasons why excess weight gain occurs. All of these variables are factors you can control so by taking action to lead a healthier lifestyle, you can get control over excess weight gain.