Obesity & Related Health Problems

Obesity is a chronic disease with a strong genetic component.

Effects of obesity on women?s health is enormous:

• Type II Diabetes
• High Blood Pressure
• High Cholesterol
• Heart Disease
• Stroke]
• Hypertension
• Sleep Apnea
• Osteoarthritis
• Day time sleepiness
• Deep Vein Thrombosis
• Gall Bladder Disease
• Impaired respiratory function
• Liver Disease
• Low Back Pain
• Urinary stress incontinence
• Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
• Certain types of cancer including breast cancer, endometrial cancer, cholorectal cancer

Obesity also affects a woman?s fertility. Effects on reproductive health include:

• Reduced ovulation
• A lowered response to fertility treatments
• Decreased pregnancy rate
• Risks to pregnancy outcome

Obesity also bears a negative effect during pregnancy by causing the following complications:

• Gestational Diabetes
• Greater probability of C-Section
• Birth defects particularly Neural Tube Defects
• Pregnancy Hypertension

Treatments Available

Dietary Therapy

Woman?s diet is modified and monitored. This helps in reducing the consumption of unhealthy foods, rich in saturated fats.

One should lay emphasis on ? Healthy Eating?. Most of us are familiar with the term but few of us are actually sure what it is. Healthy eating involves consuming a diet that combines a balance of all nutrients that the body needs to function properly. It involves:

• Eating three meals and two snacks everyday
• Eating a daily diet that incorporates all of the different food groups as grains, vegetables & fruits, meat & other alternatives and milk products.
• Minimizing intake of less beneficial foods, specially the ones rich in saturated fats, salt and caffeine.

It is important to:

• Maintain an active lifestyle
• Improve the immune and bodily functions
• Increase energy
• Regulate body weight

Foods to be limited are:

• Alcohol
• Caffeine
• Salt
• Sodas
• Trans fats and saturated fats
• Added sugars

Physical Therapy

In this therapy, the woman is introduced to a moderate exercise program, which is slowly and gradually built upon.

The word ?fitness? strikes fear in the mind of may of us. When you hear the word, you may picture yourself sweating it out on the treadmill for hours at a time. But real fitness actually has nothing to do with torturing yourself on various gym machines!!

Instead it is about helping your body to be the best that it can be.

Fitness not only provides you with a great way to help you lower your risk of serious illness and disease, it can also increase your energy, boost your mood and heighten your self esteem.

Drug Therapy

This is used in conjunction with physical and dietary therapy.

Obesity is found to cause difficulty in the conduction of the following investigations:

• USG
• Chest X Rays
• Abdominal Computed Tomography (CT)
• Chest CT
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

CT and MRI can be problematic because of weight limitations of the imaging table and the size of the opening of the imager.

Standard CT tables can take up to patients weighing 450 pounds and MRI machines can typically obtain diagnostic quality images in patients weighing up to 350 pounds.