Obesity and Physical Therapy

What is Obesity?

Obesity is a chronic disease characterized by pathological increase in abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, hypertension, cancer, stroke, liver problems, respiratory problems, sleep issues, mental health disorders and, overall, may cause a reduced quality of life. People with obesity also have an increased risk of falls.

The World Health Organization defines levels of obesity and overweight through the Body Mass Index (BMI) Body Mass Index is a simple calculation using a person’s height and weight. The formula is BMI = kg/m2 where kg is a person’s weight in kilograms and m2 is their height in meters squared.

Besides, BMI other ways of measuring body fat include:

• Waist circumference (classed obese as 80cm in females and > 94cm in males)
• Waist to hip ratio- this measures distribution of body fat
• Skin fold thickness
• Bio-impedance

Types Of Obesity

1. Food Obesity

This is the most common type of obesity caused by excessive intake of sugar and food. This can be corrected by reducing intake of food and exercising at least 30 minutes per day.

2. Thickness due to Nervous Stomach

This is caused by anxiety and depression and can be controlled by exercises that relieves stress.

3. Gluten diet

Usually occurs in women at adolescence,menopause or with harmonal imbalance.Such individuals are advised to avoid long sitting, smoking and drinking alcohol, and to start excercise.

4. Genetic metabolic Obesity

This thickness affects people who consume alcohol and have trouble breathing. Generally such people have stomachs swollen like balloons as fat accumulates in the middle part of the body.

5. Venous Circulation Obesity

This is mostly genetically inherited obesity, which occurs during pregnancy and among people who have swollen legs. The solution to such obesity is more physical activity like running ,climbing stairs or regular exercise.

6. Inactivity Obesity

This type of obesity affects parts of the body which in the past have been very active in people who play sports.The key to reduce such kinds of fats is not to allow long periods without eating and to move more. This helps in speed up metabolism and fats to burn more.

Factors Responsible For Obesity: 

There are many different contributing factors to obesity but basically there are three main factors and are prevalent within physiotherapy practice causing an increased demand for physiotherapy intervention:

• Socio-economic status (SES)
• Genetics
• Mental Health

How Can Physical Therapy Help?

Physical therapy play a vital role to design treatment programs for your specific needs:

• Manage your weight and prevent obesity.
• Develop a program to address problems that may impact your ability to be active. Your Physical therapist can teach you fun, pain-free ways to exercise.
• Safely progress your physical activity level. The right kinds and amount of exercise are important.
• Physical therapists help in evaluating and performing tests to check your overall fitness, movement, strength, coordination and balance.

Physical therapist treatment program will helps to:

• Reduce pain.
• Improve cardiovascular fitness.
• Improve muscle strength which in turns helps to burn calories, make daily activities easier and relieve joint pain.
• Improve movement.
• Improve flexibility
• Increase activity levels.

Reach out to the PhysioRehab group if you are struggling with weight management. An initial assessment will assess your condition and a trained Physiotherapist will make a customized plan for you. We are serving in Brampton and Bolton.