This article deals with two oft repeated words in health studies – food and obesity. Food is frequently linked to obesity as food puts in calories in the body and if the calories are not burnt off one way or the other, weight gain takes place.
The total calories burnt every day consist of calories burnt to run the body’s internal functions, and calories burnt through daily activities including exercise.
Obviously, the figures of total calories burnt vary depending on the height, weight, gender, age and several other factors of an individual. There are scientific ways to calculate an individual’s ability to burn calories and hence the amount of maximum calorie intake daily to maintain weight without any increase.
To have a very rough idea, the calorie intake of an adult male and an adult female which will not add to body weight, may be around 2500 and 2000 calories per day respectively.
When there is excessive calorie intake daily without much physical activities including exercise, normal weight persons may rapidly gain weight and get into overweight and then into the obese categories.
Obesity is basically abnormal accumulation of fat, about 20% or more over a person’s ideal weight. The defined criteria for obesity is the Body Mass Index (BMI) becoming 30 or more while for normal weight the BMI limit is up to 25.
There may be any number of foods that may produce obesity, but the five foods that are among the most widely consumed and create obesity quickly are:
1) Potato chips- It is reported that one ounce of potato chips contains 152 calories and 10 grams of fat out of which 3 grams are saturated. An ounce may contain about 24 plain potato chips.
2) French fries- One 6 ounces order of French fries at a fast food counter is likely to have 570 calories, most of which come from fat.
3) Sugary beverages- A 355 ml can of coca cola or equivalent contains 140 calories all of which comes from sugar.
4) Sausages- One serving of 48 gram is likely to have about 165 calories most of which is from fat.
5)Fried Chicken- A serving of 161 gram of Kentucky chicken breast or equivalent has 380 calories and about 19 grams of fat.
The above food types belong to fast food category and several of these are often consumed together by an individual daily, sometimes in great quantities.
In addition, as these foods do not usually satisfy one’s appetite fully, an individual takes in other foods also.
All these calories add up and the daily intake of calories goes much beyond one’s safe limit (e.g 2000-2500 calories or near about) resulting in rapid transformation from normal weight to overweight and then to obesity.
How does one get over this problem of turning obese by consuming food with too many calories?
The answer lies in discarding these types of fast food from the daily diet and bringing in low calorie yet nutritious foods rich in fruits and vegetables along with lean meat, whole grains and low fat dairy products. With such diet, one will have enough nutrition without any gain in weight.
Judie H Summers writes for Hcg True Diet - a diet program for fast weight loss. For more details on this program please visit http://www.hcgtruediet.com