If you lose weight, where are all those lost pounds? NOS came out with a clear video last weekend about obesity and its relationship to covid-19. They explain to you how obesity is a growing pandemic, but more importantly why finger-pointing makes little sense.
Here the important facts
- Obesity is known to pose all sorts of health risks. And that doesn't just apply to older people. That picture has now been confirmed in a new U.S. study of more than 3,000 young corona patients. Obesity causes a more serious course of disease, and a healthy lifestyle reduces that risk.
- During the first wave, it was quickly noticed that the vast majority of people in the ICUs were overweight, more than three-quarters. Important is the amount of abdominal fat. If there is too much of it, all kinds of hormones are disrupted and inflammatory substances are produced. As a result, your immune system is already chronically out of balance. So when you get an infection, you are actually already 1-0 behind. Just like with advanced age.
- For the first time in human history, which goes back at least 200,000 years, more people are dying from the consequences of eating too much food than from hunger.
- Worldwide, about 4 in 10 adults are overweight, and about 13 percent are obese. In the Netherlands we are on average slightly fatter; these numbers have about tripled over the past half century. So obesity is a much bigger problem now than it was then.
- Your brain influences your hormone balance. But vice versa, your stomach also sends all kinds of signals to your brain.
- Some people experience a feeling of satiety much faster than others. A large part of what happens to you is simply due to your dna, the genes you received from your parents. Other factors that influence your hormone balance and your weight are the food culture in which you grow up, in which a lot of food symbolizes hospitality and sociability. Or sleep deprivation, which increases the amount of hunger hormones in the blood. Your gut flora is also influential. Gut bacteria partly determine how much energy we absorb from our food. Stress raises cortisol levels in your blood, causing some people to snack more. Certain medications lead to obesity or get in the way of losing weight.
- Quite simply: Eat healthier, exercise more. Because of all the known health risks, and most recently corona virus. Especially with corona added now and possibly a second wave coming, well make sure you start living healthy and keep exercising.
- We now know that if you already take off 5 or 6 percent of your weight and start living healthy then you can already improve your immune system well and arm yourself better against corona.
"Fun fact" Where do all those pounds go when you lose weight? The calories we burn are converted into carbon dioxide and eventually leave your body with every exhalation.
Source: NOS on 3
