CDC also works with national groups to increase the number of salad bars in schools. As of , the Salad Bars to School program has delivered almost 6, salad bars to schools across the nation, giving over 2. Millions of US adults buy foods and drinks while at work.

CDC develops and promotes food service guidelines that encourage employers and vendors to increase healthy food options for employees. CDC-funded programs are working to make healthy foods and drinks including water more available in cafeterias, snack shops, and vending machines.

CDC also partners with states to help employers comply with the federal lactation accommodation law and provide breastfeeding mothers with places to pump and store breast milk, flexible work hours, and maternity leave benefits.

People living in low-income urban neighborhoods, rural areas, and tribal communities often have little access to affordable, healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables. These programs, which also involve food vendors and distributors, help increase the variety and number of healthier foods and drinks available and help promote and market these items to customers.

Participants in the National DPP lifestyle change program learn to make healthy food choices, be more physically active, and find ways to cope with stress. Skip directly to site content Skip directly to search. Español Other Languages. Poor Nutrition. Minus Related Pages.

Measure Breastfeeding Practices and Eating Patterns Support Breastfeeding in the Hospital and Community Offer Healthier Food Options in Early Care and Education Facilities and Schools Offer Healthier Food Options in the Workplace Improve Access to Healthy Foods in States and Communities Support Lifestyle Change Programs to Reduce Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes Risk.

Fast Stats In the United States:. The Harmful Effects of Poor Nutrition Overweight and Obesity Eating a healthy diet, along with getting enough physical activity and sleep, can help children grow up healthy and prevent overweight and obesity.

Heart Disease and Stroke. Support Breastfeeding in the Hospital and Community. Offer Healthier Food Options in Early Care and Education Facilities and Schools. Offer Healthier Food Options in the Workplace Millions of US adults buy foods and drinks while at work.

Improve Access to Healthy Foods in States and Communities. What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Download QR code Wikidata item.

Download as PDF Printable version. Available dietary energy across time. Effect of diet on obesity. no data. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Archived from the original on August 2, Retrieved February 18, UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Retrieved January 10, Archived from the original gif on September 1, org" PDF.

Archived from the original on June 3, Archived from the original PDF on February 25, Retrieved February 17, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. PMID Epidemiologic Reviews. doi : Obesity Reviews. In Frazão E ed. Agriculture Information Bulletin No. Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.

Archived from the original on Retrieved S2CID National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The Journal of Nutrition. The International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

PMC August The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. ISSN April Age, gender, body size, and level of physical activity dictate how many calories you need each day to lose weight or to stay at a healthy weight.

With two out of three U. Online calorie-needs calculators are a bit over-generous with their recommendations. A better approach: Adopt habits that will help you avoid overeating see below -and skip some of the high-calorie, low-nutrient foods that are most strongly linked to weight gain, such as sugar-sweetened beverages, refined grains, and potatoes.

Besides eating a healthy diet, nothing is more important to keeping weight in check and staying healthy than regular activity. If there ever were a magic bullet for good health, physical activity would be it. There are a lot of ways to get moving. Choose activities you enjoy.

For good health: 2. For weight control: 1 hour a day of moderate to vigorous activity. This activity can be pieced together from short bursts of 10 minutes or more. Key to these recommendations is that all activities should be age appropriate and fun, and keep kids moving and breathing at an increased rate.

Watching television TV can be enjoyable and informative; unfortunately it can also be double jeopardy when it comes to weight. Try these tips for curbing exposure to TV and other screen media video games, recreational computer use, and similar pastimes :.

Here are some general recommendations for sleep duration. Source: National Sleep Foundation. Together with the help of their healthcare providers, women of childbearing age, pregnant women, and new mothers can take steps that could help improve their own health as well as the health of their children.

This is a normal part of life, but when these stresses become too much, they can take a toll on health and contribute to weight gain by leading to unhealthy eating and other unhealthy activities. One of the best ways to control stress is also one of the best ways to combat weight gain: regular physical activity.

Mind body approaches, such as breathing exercises, can also be beneficial.

olariike adelekeuniversity. Excessive body weight is a growing health problem worldwide. It is a well-known risk factor in cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, and cancers, among other conditions [ 1 ].

According to World Health Organization, obesity has been considered as one of the leading threats to future public health. Obesity is a complex health issue resulting from a combination of causes and individual factors such as behavior and genetics [ 2 ]. Behaviors can include physical activity, inactivity, dietary patterns, medication use, and other exposures.

Although there are genetic, behavioral, metabolic and hormonal influences on body weight, obesity occurs when you take in more calories than you burn through exercise and normal daily activities that is when energy intake exceeds energy expenditure.

Even though the cause of obesity is complicated, dietary habit or lifestyle plays an important role in developing obese conditions [ 3 ]. The increasing westernization, urbanization and mechanization occurring in most countries around the world is associated with changes in the diet towards one of high fat, high energy-dense foods and a sedentary lifestyle [ 4 ].

There is also a direct relationship between the amount of dietary fat and the degree of obesity. High-fat diets induce greater food intake and weight gain than high-carbohydrate diets as indicated by animal studies [ 6 ]. Contributing factors are caloric density, satiety properties and post-absorptive processing.

The satiating effects after meals with a high fat:carbohydrate ratio is less than for meals with a lower ratio.

Mediterranean pattern of nutrition, has been described as containing high proportion of mono-unsaturated fat acids versus saturated fats and contributes in the preservation of body weight, while expands longevity and life expectancy.

This pattern of nutrition has been adopted by many countries and it is diversified according to the cultural and socio-economic features of each country. Several research studies have commented on the beneficial effects of the Mediterranean diet in the preservation or decrease of body weight, in the primary or secondary prevention of coronary disease, in the maintenance of high density cholesterol HDL and triglycerides within normal rates, as well as in the significant reduction in mortality rates [ 7 , 8 , 9 ].

Current recommendations for weight management emphasize the importance of healthy eating patterns that include a variety of nutrient-dense foods, limit portions of energy-dense foods, and reduce overall energy density [ 10 ].

A unifying factor for weight loss across dietary patterns is energy density [ 11 ]. The goal of dietary therapy in the management of obesity is to reduce the total number of calories consumed.

It is a medical problem that increases your risk of other diseases and health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and certain cancers. Even though the cause of obesity is complicated, dietary habit or lifestyle plays an important role in developing obese conditions [ 3 , 12 ].

Lifestyle changes and nutritional habits, such as irregular meal patterns; mainly skipping breakfast, consumption of foods and beverages of low nutritional value and sub-optimal intake of dairy products, fruits and vegetables, intake of refined carbohydrates such as sugar sweetened soft drinks are all contributing factors to the development of obesity [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ].

Obesity as a complex disorder has multiple etiological factors. The primary factor which is considered as a driver of obesity is obesogenic environment and unhealthy eating behavior.

Secondary factors such as genetic and neuroendocrine factors, and diseases such as hypothyroidism and polycystic ovary syndrome are also related to excessive weight [ 16 ].

Obesity has been shown to be a predisposing factor in the rising prevalence of morbidity and mortality associated with non — communicable diseases like type-2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, cancer, stroke among adults [ 18 ].

Overweight and obesity increases the likelihood of various diseases, particularly heart diseases, type2 diabetes, breathing difficulties during sleep, certain types of cancer and osteoarthritis [ 19 ].

Fat are of various types, some are more beneficial to health than others. Those found in foods are known as dietary fats, the body needs fat to function fully as it has a lot of functions in the body and is essential to health.

For instance, fat soluble vitamins Vitamins A, D, E and K cannot be transported in the absence of fat. However, a diet with too much fat can increase body weight and also increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Dietary fats are believed to play an important role in the development of heart disease [ 20 ]. The National health institutions has recommended to reduce the intake of dietary fat to prevent CVDs [ 21 ].

Monounsaturated fat : This type of fat is found in a variety of foods and oils. Eating foods rich in monounsaturated fats improves blood cholesterol levels, which in turn decrease the risk of heart disease and may also help decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes. Polyunsaturated Fat: This fat is found mostly in plant-based foods and oils.

Omega-3 fatty acids, which is a polyunsaturated fat has been attributed to low rate of heart disease [ 22 ]. Also, it helps to raise HDL cholesterol level [ 23 ]. Oils such as canola oil, olive oil, corn oil, sunflower oil and peanut oil are made up of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats and are liquid at room temperature.

Fish such as tuna, salmon, trout, mackerel, herring and sardines are high in omega-3 fatty acids. Plant sources of omega-3 fatty acids are soybean oil, flaxseed oil, and nuts walnuts, butternuts. Saturated fats and trans fat are often termed unhealthy fats, this is due to the fact that both raise LDL cholesterol levels.

High level of LDL cholesterol in the blood increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. A larger amount of saturated fats is from animal sources, including meat and dairy products. Foods high in saturated fat include fatty beef, pork, butter, lard and cream, poultry with skin.

Plant-based oils, such as coconut oil, palm oil also contain saturated fats, but do not contain cholesterol. Trans fat is a product of a process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid and also refer to as partially hydrogenated oils.

These partially hydrogenated oils increase LDL cholesterol and lowers HDL cholesterol which in turn increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. Foods high in trans fat include fried foods, such as French fries, stick margarines and shortenings, pastries, packaged foods, baked goods and pizza dough.

Fatty foods are energy dense and give 9calories per gram compared to carbohydrate and protein that gives 4calories per gram. Fats are quickly and easily stored by the body.

Obesity is a multifactorial and complex affectation that is characterized by a long-term excess energy intake EI above energy expenditure EE and epidemiological evidence have suggested that a high-fat diet promotes the development of obesity [ 24 ]. An overview of animal studies had indicated that high-fat diets induce greater food intake and weight gain than high-carbohydrate diets [ 25 ].

It has been reported that the most important variable influencing meal size is the nutrient content of the range of foods consumed and not the level of hunger. Thus dietary fat has a weak effect on satiety and periodic exposure to a high-fat meal, particularly when hunger is high, is sufficient enough to lead to overconsumption of energy as fat in obese patients.

An important determinant of body fat is the percentage of dietary energy from fat. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain why high fat intake might lead to greater body fat [ 26 ].

Fat adds greater flavor and palatability to foods, which could thus increase their consumption. Fat has a lower thermogenic effect than carbohydrate and protein and this inhibit energy expenditure. A positive energy balance can be the result of overconsumption of energy, perhaps because a high-fat diet has a lower satiating effect per joule than a low-fat diet.

A series of studies has produced robust evidence that the fattening effect of dietary fat is linked mainly to the higher energy density of fatty foods compared with carbohydrate and protein rich foods.

In addition, when studied under careful metabolic conditions for short periods, carbohydrate produces a greater thermogenic effect than fat, suggesting that dietary fat may be utilized more efficiently and accumulate as body fat [ 27 ]. Carbohydrate intake, but not fat intake, is regulated; thus, individuals on a high-fat diet would tend to consume more total energy to gain the required amount of carbohydrate than would someone on a low-fat diet [ 28 ].

Although these mechanisms may seem compelling at face value, foods are not eaten in isolation, and the energy for weight of foods is more determined by the water and fiber content.

Different types of fat contain the same amount of energy, although there are differences in their respective influence on energy balance, energy expenditure and satiety. Low-fat diets and in weight-maintenance diets, have been shown to be affected by the quality of dietary fat.

Animal studies have shown that rats fed a diet rich in safflower oil polyunsaturated fats accumulate less body fat than rats fed a diet rich in beef tallow which is a saturated fat [ 29 ]. Monounsaturated was found to induce a lower level of postingestive satiety and a larger subsequent energy intake than polyunsaturated and saturated fat in a study on the effect in lean subjects of high-fat meals, differing in fatty acid composition [ 30 ].

Dietary patterns that have inverse relationship with obesity include vegan diet, Mediterranean diet and prudent diet. Western diet is directly associated with obesity. This is a form of vegetarian diet that eliminates meat and animal product, this diet is beneficial to health because it reduces the intake of cholesterol and saturated fat that is predominant in animal product.

It has been proven that those who practice a vegan diet minimize their overall risk of coronary heart disease, obesity and high blood pressure. This diet recommends the use of plant based oil as alternative to butter, it emphasizes adding vegetables to each meal.

Avoidance of meat is recommended, though not eliminated. This diet has been proven to help with depression, in addition to controlling blood sugar levels and helping with weight loss.

Whole grains, nuts and herbs are also used in larger amounts. This diet protects against heart disease, stroke, and other common diseases. It consists of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, fish, and low-fat dairy products rather than refined or processed foods, red meats, high concentrated sweets, eggs, and butter.

This diet is characterized by high intake of processed food, red meat, high-sugar foods and pre-packaged foods, that increase the risk of chronic illness. Eating junk foods, which are part of the western diet, could impair the part of the brain tied to self-control, in turn result to overeating and weight gain.

Recommendations for weight management emphasize the importance of healthy eating patterns which include consumption of nutrient-dense foods, limiting portion size of energy-dense foods, and reduce overall energy density.

The goal of dietary therapy is to reduce the total number of calories consumed. The optimal diet for prevention of weight gain, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes is fat-reduced, fiber-rich and high in low-energy density carbohydrates fruit, vegetables, and whole grain products.

The Mediterranean eating pattern that emphasizes intake of low-energy dense fruits, vegetables, legumes, seafood, and dairy foods has proved effective in the management of obesity.

Even with this level of healthy fats, the Mediterranean diet recommends high proportion of fruit and vegetable which can help to keep the overall diet relatively low in energy density. It has been established that different types of carbohydrate have varying effects on metabolism and health.

Some carbohydrates are healthier than others; those with lower glycemic indexes or GI have a slower and flatter blood glucose response. They take longer to digest and can help us feel full thus preventing overeating and weight gain. Lower GI foods are less refined or processed such as whole grains, legumes, fruit, and vegetable.

High GI foods are refined carbohydrate and contribute to weight gain. Many high-carbohydrate foods common to Western diets produce a high glycemic response, promoting postprandial carbohydrate oxidation at the expense of fat oxidation, thus altering fuel partitioning in a way that may be conducive to body fat gain [ 31 ].

Breakfast : The pattern of food consumption over a day as either meals or snacks could affect weight management. Epidemiological studies have also found breakfast consumption to be associated with lower body weights and lower daily energy density.

If individuals consume breakfast daily, including higher amounts of protein and fiber during breakfast may help increase satiety, decrease energy intake, and lower dietary energy density. Snacking : Snacks are often refers to processed, high-calorie items like chips and cookies. Snacking refers to the consumption of foods and beverages between regular meals, regardless of whether the food is healthy [ 32 ].

Many a times people consume snacks when appetizing food is available; even though they are not hungry. Snacking in the absence of hunger leads to the consumption of fat, sugar, and sodium-rich foods [ 33 ].

If snacks should be consumed, it should be chosen wisely; high energy-dense snacks, nutrient-poor snacks such as chips, cookies, confectionary may be associated with high BMI should be limited [ 32 ]. However, lower — energy dense snacks such as fruit and vegetable which enhance satiety and improves diet quality should be consumed in large amount.

Evidence from multiple clinical trials shows that both low- and moderate-fat diets combined with an energy restriction can be used to achieve weight loss. High-fat foods are energy dense, low-fat diet is therefore recommended for weight loss.

Also, there is need for moderation of portion size to stay within recommended energy intakes. Methods for moderating fat intake include switching to lower-fat alternatives such as grilled chicken instead of fried chicken or low-fat Greek yogurt instead of sour cream.

Also, the amount of solid fats, which contain saturated and trans fat should decrease, and to substitute with oils containing polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats to improve diet quality and overall health. Protein and fiber have been suggested to promote satiety or feelings of fullness.

The most satiating macronutrient is protein, incorporating more protein in the diet may increase satiety and decrease daily energy intake. Patients should be encouraged to incorporate recommended amounts of lean protein sources such as grilled chicken breast, legumes, or low-fat dairy to create satisfying low-energy-dense meals.

Dietary fiber is thought to promote feelings of fullness by increasing chewing time, promoting stomach expansion, and decreasing absorption efficiency.

Studies show that increasing fiber at meals can lead to decreased energy intake and increased ratings of fullness. Also, diets containing higher amounts of fiber are associated with lower body weights and reduced disease risks.

Dietary fat induces overconsumption and weight gain through its low satiety properties and high caloric density. Obese and post-obese subjects do not appear to adapt to dietary fat, and therefore fat storage is increased.

Both total fat and individual fatty acids have to be considered when reaching conclusions about dietary fat and obesity. Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.

Edited by Akikazu Takada. Open access peer-reviewed chapter Diet and Obesity Written By Olariike Oyindasola Kayode.

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For more information, read our guide to understanding calories. As well as this, many people do not meet the recommended physical activity levels for adults, so excess calories consumed end up being stored as fat in the body.

Diet and lifestyle factors contribute to development of obesity and overweight. Some of the most common ones are:. Changes in society have also made it more difficult to have a healthy diet. High calorie food has become cheaper and more convenient, and is heavily advertised and promoted.

Read about eating less saturated fat and how to cut down on sugar in your diet. Lack of physical activity is another important factor related to obesity.

Many people have jobs that involve sitting at a desk for most of the day. They also rely on their cars, rather than walking or cycling.

For relaxation, many people tend to watch TV, browse the internet or play computer games, and rarely take regular exercise. If you are not active enough, you do not use the energy provided by the food you eat, and the extra energy you consume is stored by the body as fat.

The Department of Health and Social Care recommends that adults do at least minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, such as cycling or fast walking, every week. This does not need to be done all in a single session, but can be broken down into smaller periods.

For example, you could exercise for 30 minutes a day for 5 days a week. If you're living with obesity and trying to lose weight , you may need to do more exercise than this. It may help to start off slowly and gradually increase the amount of exercise you do each week.

Read more about the physical activity guidelines for adults. There are some genes associated with obesity and overweight. In some people, genes can affect how their bodies change food into energy and store fat. Genes can also affect people's lifestyle choices. There are also some rare genetic conditions that can cause obesity, such as Prader-Willi syndrome.

Certain genetic traits inherited from your parents — such as having a large appetite — may make losing weight more difficult, but they do not make it impossible.