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An Abuja-based medical practitioner, Dr Patrick Okolie, has warned the public against the use of drugs that can trigger obesity in people.
Okolie in Abuja on Monday said that there were certain drugs that tended to increase the body mass index of people taking such drugs.
He said that as a result of the increase in body mass index, fat might be deposited within the body, making the individual to suffer obesity.
“These are drugs containing certain hormones; the people who are developing this obesity based drugs, should present them to their physician who will know what to do.
“The doctor knows how to go about adjusting these drugs or change them to something more beneficial to them,” he said.
According to the doctor, obesity means having too much body fat, which means excessive fat in the body, which may be confused with being overweight because they are both related.
“Being overweight means that the person weighs more than what is expected for that person’s weight based on the person’s height or age.
“Then for the person who is overweight, the overweight may come from extra muscles, or bone or water, it may also come from having too much fat.
He explained that when someone who was overweight had too much fat, it could also be regarded as obesity.
He said the commonest cause of obesity was over-eating — eating more than your body can take.
“Another thing that can cause obesity is the lack of physical exercise, when people live sedentary lifestyles, not carrying out much physical activities can also lead to obesity,’’ he said.
According to him, obesity can lead to heart disease, certain types of diabetes and sleep disorder.
He said that obesity could also cause certain types of cancer, osteoarthritis (arthritis that features the breakdown and eventual loss of the cartilage of one or more joints).
Okolie, however, explained that next to aging, obesity was the most significant risk factor for problems of the knees.
The early development of osteoarthritis (a form of arthritis) of the knees among weight lifters was believed to be due to their high body weight.
Okolie said that in combating obesity, the measures one could use include watching your diet, saying “if you control what you eat, one can avoid being overweight and being obese.
“Another method of combating obesity is by carrying out physical exercise, some people either because of their work schedule or because of their general lifestyle have not involved themselves in any form of physical exercise which tends to predispose them to obesity,” he said.
Okolie said the effects of obesity were usually long-lasting.
“Obesity also affects even the rich people who can actually afford any kind of food to eat,” he said.
“There are two common methods to avoid being obese, one is to watch what one eats and secondly to live an active lifestyle with plenty exercise.
“So dieting is important if one wants to lose weight, one should diet based on the advice of a dietician, nutritionist or a doctor,” he said.
He said that people should carry out some kind of physical exercise daily which could help burn the excess fat.
He advised that being overweight was not an admirable thing and not a sign of affluence and that there were many diseases that were associated with being overweight.
“So we should watch what we eat and also endeavour to engage in some kind of exercise to stay healthy,” Okolie advised. (NAN)
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