Author: Rexford S. Ahima Publisher: JHU Press ISBN: 1421442728 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 216
Book Description
How can we work together to understand the rise of obesity and reverse its related diseases and societal impacts? Obesity is a complex condition that increases a person's risk for developing diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, and other life-threatening conditions. Contrary to prevailing notions that it results solely from a person's diet and exercise failings, a predisposition to obesity is actually determined by genetics as well as by environmental and socioeconomic factors that lie beyond individual control. In Can the Obesity Crisis Be Reversed?, Dr. Rexford Ahima draws on his extensive laboratory and clinical experiences at top institutions to examine the complicated causes of obesity, as well as the most cutting-edge approaches for prevention and treatment. Ahima looks at how the rising trends of obesity and associated diseases are driving up health care costs. He also offers insight into the widespread suffering that obesity imposes and its disproportionate impacts in minority and underserved communities. Calling for greater societal and community engagement in stemming the obesity crisis, Ahima argues that there is an urgent need to promote healthier foods and environmental infrastructure as well as formal programs that reduce obesity. By understanding and applying fundamental knowledge, Can the Obesity Crisis Be Reversed? makes a convincing case that all of us, working individually and collectively, can help to reverse the obesity crisis. Features • Provides information on the biological pathways that control eating and metabolism • Explains genetic and environmental bases of obesity • Reviews the contributions of diet and physical activity to weight gain while speaking to the folly and dangers of individual blame • Offers practical recommendations for healthy diets, exercise, and lifestyle • Discusses current medical and surgical treatments of obesity • Examines comprehensive societal strategies for obesity prevention Johns Hopkins Wavelengths In classrooms, field stations, and laboratories in Baltimore and around the world, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professors of Johns Hopkins University are opening the boundaries of our understanding of many of the world's most complex challenges. The Johns Hopkins Wavelengths book series brings readers inside their stories, illustrating how their pioneering discoveries benefit people in their neighborhoods and across the globe in artificial intelligence, cancer research, food systems' environmental impacts, health equity, science diplomacy, and other critical arenas of study. Through these compelling narratives, their insights will spark conversations from dorm rooms to dining rooms to boardrooms.
Author: Rebecca E. Lee Publisher: Human Kinetics ISBN: 1492582956 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 249
Book Description
Obesity has become a global crisis. Although most would agree that eating better and being more physically active are the answer to the problem, researchers have recently become aware that the problem goes beyond just changing individual behaviors. We can convince people of the benefits of healthful eating and regular physical activity, but what happens when they go home to a neighborhood where fresh vegetables are not available and opportunities for physical activity are hard to find? If the environment doesn’t help support healthy lifestyles, the change will be next to impossible to sustain. In Reversing the Obesogenic Environment, leading researchers Lee, McAlexander, and Banda introduce the concept of the obesogenic environment—an environment that leads people to become obese—and explore ways that changing our environment can encourage healthier choices. Although most of the current literature focuses on the food supply and dietary habits, Reversing the ObesogenicEnvironment takes a broader view of the current obesity problem. It looks at all of the elements that combine to create the obesogenic environment: •The ways that the built environment, access to resources, and active transportation systems can either foster or discourage regular physical activity •The multiple factors that encourage consumption of calorie-laden, nutritionally inadequate foods that can lead to obesity •The positive and negative impact of public policy •The influence of family, culture, socioeconomic status, and other social factors on an individual’s health behaviors as well as access to physical activity opportunities and healthier food options •The role that media and marketing play in food purchasing decisions With Reversing the Obesogenic Environment, readers will get a cutting-edge view of this emerging body of research with applications that can be realistically implemented in their communities. The book goes beyond defining the issues that contribute to the obesity epidemic—it offers tools that will help practitioners start to reverse it. Throughout the book, the authors incorporate practical recommendations based on the latest research. Sample programs and policies, checklists, and potential solutions offer readers a starting point for changes in their own communities. The obesity epidemic is a multifaceted issue influenced by factors ranging from international trade and national policy to individual behaviors. Reversing the problem will take coordinated multilevel efforts. These efforts may take years to come to fruition, but it isn’t too late to take action. Reversing the Obesogenic Environment is the ideal guide to taking the first steps toward change. Reversing the Obesogenic Environment is part of the Physical Activity Intervention Series (PAIS). This timely series provides educational resources for professionals interested in promoting and implementing physical activity and health promotion programs to a diverse and often-resistant population.
Author: Institute of Medicine Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309149894 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
To battle the obesity epidemic in America, health care professionals and policymakers need relevant, useful data on the effectiveness of obesity prevention policies and programs. Bridging the Evidence Gap in Obesity Prevention identifies a new approach to decision making and research on obesity prevention to use a systems perspective to gain a broader understanding of the context of obesity and the many factors that influence it.
Author: Institute of Medicine Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309133408 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 435
Book Description
Children's health has made tremendous strides over the past century. In general, life expectancy has increased by more than thirty years since 1900 and much of this improvement is due to the reduction of infant and early childhood mortality. Given this trajectory toward a healthier childhood, we begin the 21st-century with a shocking developmentâ€"an epidemic of obesity in children and youth. The increased number of obese children throughout the U.S. during the past 25 years has led policymakers to rank it as one of the most critical public health threats of the 21st-century. Preventing Childhood Obesity provides a broad-based examination of the nature, extent, and consequences of obesity in U.S. children and youth, including the social, environmental, medical, and dietary factors responsible for its increased prevalence. The book also offers a prevention-oriented action plan that identifies the most promising array of short-term and longer-term interventions, as well as recommendations for the roles and responsibilities of numerous stakeholders in various sectors of society to reduce its future occurrence. Preventing Childhood Obesity explores the underlying causes of this serious health problem and the actions needed to initiate, support, and sustain the societal and lifestyle changes that can reverse the trend among our children and youth.
Author: Institute of Medicine Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309302781 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 94
Book Description
For the first time in decades, promising news has emerged regarding efforts to curb the obesity crisis in the United States. Obesity rates have fallen among low-income children in 18 states, the prevalence of obesity has plateaued among girls, regardless of ethnicity, and targeted efforts in states such as Massachusetts have demonstrably reduced the prevalence of obesity among children. Although the reasons for this turnaround are as complex and multifaceted as the reasons for the dramatic rise in obesity rates in recent decades, interventions to improve nutrition and increase physical activity are almost certainly major contributors. Yet major problems remain. Diseases associated with obesity continue to incur substantial costs and cause widespread human suffering. Moreover, substantial disparities in obesity rates exist among population groups, and in some cases these disparities are widening. Some groups and regions are continuing to experience increases in obesity rates, and the prevalence of severe obesity is continuing to rise. The Current State of Obesity Solutions in the United States is the summary of a workshop convened in January 2014 by the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Obesity Solutions to foster an ongoing dialogue on critical and emerging implementation, policy, and research issues to accelerate progress in obesity prevention and care. Representatives of public health, health care, government, the food industry, education, philanthropy, the nonprofit sector, and academia met to discuss interventions designed to prevent and treat obesity. The workshop focused on early care and education, schools, worksites, health care institutions, communities and states, the federal government, and business and industry. For each of these groups, this report provides an overview of current efforts to improve nutrition, increase physical activity, and reduce disparities among populations.
Author: Deborah Cohen Publisher: Bold Type Books ISBN: 1568589654 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 159
Book Description
Obesity is the public health crisis of the twenty-first century. Over 150 million Americans are overweight or obese, and across the globe an estimated 1.5 billion are affected. In A Big Fat Crisis, Dr. Deborah A. Cohen has created a major new work that will transform the conversation surrounding the modern weight crisis. Based on her own extensive research, as well as the latest insights from behavioral economics and cognitive science, Cohen reveals what drives the obesity epidemic and how we, as a nation, can overcome it. Cohen argues that the massive increase in obesity is the product of two forces. One is the immutable aspect of human nature, namely the fundamental limits of self-control and the unconscious ways we are hard-wired to eat. And second is the completely transformed modern food environment, including lower prices, larger portion sizes, and the outsized influence of food advertising. We live in a food swamp, where food is cheap, ubiquitous, and insidiously marketed. This, rather than the much-discussed "food deserts," is the source of the epidemic. The conventional wisdom is that overeating is the expression of individual weakness and a lack of self-control. But that would mean that people in this country had more willpower thirty years ago, when the rate of obesity was half of what it is today! The truth is that our capacity for self-control has not shrunk; instead, the changing conditions of our modern world have pushed our limits to such an extent that more and more of us are simply no longer up to the challenge. Ending this public health crisis will require solutions that transcend the advice found in diet books. Simply urging people to eat less sugar, salt, and fat has not worked. A Big Fat Crisis offers concrete recommendations and sweeping policy changes-including implementing smart and effective regulations and constructing a more balanced food environment-that represent nothing less than a blueprint for defeating the obesity epidemic once and for all.
Author: Naveed Sattar Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1444312707 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 64
Book Description
Obesity is a hugely expensive and increasing problem worldwide,leading to disability, reproductive problems, depression andaccelerated metabolic and vascular diseases in a large proportionof men, women and children. The ABC of Obesity is a newguide which will aid its effective management, addressing issuessuch as dieting, exercise, self esteem, drug treatment and surgery.Recent evidence is used to highlight frequent problems, successfultreatment options, and the most common causes. Written by leading experts, this is a widely accessible text andan indispensable guide for all general practitioners, juniordoctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who areinvolved in the treatment and research of this commoncondition.
Author: Harriet Brown Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books ISBN: 0738217697 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 306
Book Description
A science journalist's provocative exploration of how biology, psychology, media, and culture come together to shape our ongoing obsession with our bodies, while also tackling the myths and realities of the "obesity epidemic."
Author: Michael L. Power Publisher: JHU Press ISBN: 1421409607 Category : Health & Fitness Languages : en Pages : 406
Book Description
Draws on popular examples and sound science to explain our expanding waistlines and to discuss the consequences of being overweight for different demographic groups. Reviews the various studies of human and animal fat use and storage, including those that examine fat deposition and metabolism in men and women; chronicle cultural differences in food procurement, preparation, and consumption; and consider the influence of sedentary occupations and lifestyles.
Author: Rexford S. Ahima
Author: Rebecca E. Lee
Author: Institute of Medicine
Author: Institute of Medicine
Author: Institute of Medicine
Author: Deborah Cohen
Author: Naveed Sattar
Author: Harriet Brown
Author: Michael L. Power
Author: Jacqueline D. Wright