What is Obesity?

When a person’s excess weight is having bad effects on overall health to the point of significantly increasing the risk of one or more obesity-related health conditions or co-morbidities, he/she is said to be morbidly obese. But even before a person gets to that point, when they have excess weight that is not easily solved by diet and exercise, such as having 50 pounds of weight to lose, that is when they are eligible for the adjustable laparoscopic band.

Portion size is the major contributor to excess weight in the United States. Portion sizes today are much larger than they were twenty years ago. Over time the person becomes used to eating larger portions, and without increasing activity, those calories become stored as fat. The band allows people to reverse the trend, by feeling satisfied with smaller portions. If you wish to be a 125 pound person you must eat like a 125 pound person.
The band is almost preventive surgery—preventing obesity in those who have excess weight to lose, but do not yet meet the criteria of obesity. The band is also therapeutic, allowing a gentle weight loss without diets or gimmicks.

Morbid obesity is a chronic disease with symptoms that build slowly over an extended period of time. It is defined as being 100 lbs or more over your ideal body weight or having a BMI of 40 or higher. But excess weight that can lead to obesity begins much earlier in life. There are many contributing factors to obesity and these include genetic/hereditary, environmental, metabolic and eating disorders. Weight gain usually results when one of these factors affects us in a negative way.

Our genetic make-up plays a major role in gaining excess weight. It determines our “susceptibility” or “risk” of becoming overweight or obese. Our personalized attitudes also influence our behavior regarding what we eat and how much we engage in physical activities in our daily lives.

Genes also affect how efficiently our body utilizes and burns calories and where our body fat is stored. If you have a high metabolic rate, this means that you burn your calories a lot faster so you are less prone to gaining weight than someone else who has a slow metabolic rate. Even people with the same diet may not show any relation to the body weight of each other while a family whose member’s live apart and do not have the same diet may show a close relation to each other’s body size.

Environmental factors such as fast food diners and the weather can also affect the development of our body weight. For example, people who are always moving or are engaged in physical activities during their daily routine will less likely show signs of obesity than people who sit behind a desk all day.

With the band you are able to lose weight, and keep it off. The band is the safest tool for weight loss today. It allows you to eat less and be satisfied between meals– thus you lose weight gently, and are able to maintain that weight loss.