Is it Obesity?

Some people are not sure if they are obese or not. People would like to know but people also want to help those in the generation after them. They would like to help their children know if they have obesity so that they don't encounter the same problems. What are the signs of obesity in children? Here is an excerpt from the San Francisco Children's Hospital that you can check out.

Childhood Obesity
May 8, 2008 Reviewed by: Healthcare Specialists at UCSF Children's Hospital

Signs and Symptoms

The causes of obesity are complex, including genetic, biological, behavioral, nutritional and cultural factors. Obesity occurs when a person eats more calories than the body burns up. The root causes of obesity are excess consumption of food, a lack of physical activity or both.

If one parent is obese, there's a 50 percent chance that his or her children will be obese. When both parents are obese, their children have an 80 percent chance of obesity. More...

Obesity Medicine: Does It Really Help?

People have made medicine to help cure obesity. Some work but there has been some concerns. In England and Scotland, there is a drug that has recently been released but it resulted in five deaths. Bottom line: watch out for what type of medicine to use!

Death Linked Obesity Drug
June 28, 2008

An anti-obesity drug implicated in the deaths of five people is being handed out to Scots in contravention of advice from medical authorities.

Rimonabant - also known under the brand name Accomplia - has just been given the go-ahead for general use in England, even though it was linked to two fatal heart attacks, one suicide and a death from unknown causes since its launch in 2006. These deaths were recorded by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Mental health implications - which include a heightened risk of mental illness and suicidal thoughts, particularly in those already on anti-depressants - led to the decision by the Food and Drug Administration in the US to refuse its approval. More...

A Smaller Stomach?

Here's a positive side to the issue of obesity. You can get rid of it without the liposuction. All it simply is a piece of your small intestine getting cut out to make your stomach smaller so that you eat less calories. Would you make the choice of getting gastric bypass surgery?

Gastric bypass
April 20,2007 by: Caroline Rea, RN, BS, MS

(Web MD) Gastric bypass surgery makes the stomach smaller and allows food to bypass part of the small intestine. You will feel full more quickly than when your stomach was its original size, which reduces the amount of food you eat and thus the calories consumed. Bypassing part of the intestine also results in fewer calories being absorbed. This leads to weight loss.

The most common gastric bypass surgery is a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass.

In normal digestion, food passes through the stomach and enters the small intestine, where most of the nutrients and calories are absorbed. It then passes into the large intestine (colon), and the remaining waste is eventually excreted.

In a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, the stomach is made smaller by creating a small pouch at the top of the stomach using surgical staples or a plastic band. The smaller stomach is connected directly to the middle portion of the small intestine (jejunum), bypassing the rest of the stomach and the upper portion of the small intestine (duodenum). More...