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What Is Obesity?

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What is Obesity?
Ambrozia Medina
Luna Community College

Abstract
Obesity means having too much body fat. It is different from being overweight, which means weighing too much. The weight may come from muscle, bone, fat, and/or body water. Both terms mean that a person's weight is greater than what's considered healthy for his or her height. Obesity occurs over time when you eat more calories than you burn off. The balance between calories-in and calories-out differs for each person. Factors that might affect your weight include your genetic makeup, environment, television, and not being physically active. Being obese increases your risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, and some cancers. These diseases can be deadly and if something is not done, more people are going to become obese and later on possibly die. Obesity costs taxpayers millions of dollars every year and needs to be put to a stop.

What is Obesity?
Obesity is a term used to describe a person who weighs 20 percent more than their ideal weight. To determine that, doctors use what is called the BMI (body mass index) to measure a person’s height, gender, age, and build (MedicineNet.com, 2012). Obesity happens when someone regularly consumes more calories than what they burn. It is the point where the body is physically delayed and is in need for medical attention. Obesity is very common all over the world, but especially in the United States. One-third of all adults are obese in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015), but it is a medical condition that can be preventable and curable.
Obesity has several causes and most of those causes are by the people themselves. Obesity is caused by the amount of calories that are consumed that do not get burned off. Those excess calories turn into body fat, which adds up to the extra pounds that are put on. Genetics,

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