Understanding Health and Weight Loss
Health is one gift we should all treasure. Without it, normal bodily functions will not be possible. Being thin does not mean that a person is healthy. The same goes to being fat is obese. Weight and appearances should not be the basis of being healthy. All people are struggling with the weight-one way or another, and there are different ways of dealing with it.
Dieting, as others would call it, implies to any intake of nutrition that an organism has consumed. It is done to improve health and weight loss. A dietary habit pertains to the individuals’ choice of food that he eats regularly. It also defines a person’s mortality or life span. There are various reasons why a person goes on a diet, and these reasons can be either healthy or unhealthy for an individual.
Health and weight loss are the most common causes of dieting. To live longer, an older individual for example, must carefully watch his dietary habits, or else he may risk himself more to high blood pressure or diabetes. The same idea is applied to weight loss- to have an ideal Body Mass Index (BMI), one must exercise to lose weight. Any extraneous activity can be exercise- like brisk walking in the park, or taking a few flight of stairs instead of jumping in an elevator. Even playing with your dog can be an exercise, what is important is that your blood flows faster thus, unblocking clogged arteries or veins.
On the other hand, if one struggles to eat just to be too thin, or eats lesser calories than his normal body needs, then this is considered unhealthy dieting. The problem is not the person’s weight, but his self-perception of being fat. This is more of a psychological problem that needs to be dealt with professionals. The proper term for this unhealthy dieting is eating disorder. Health and weight loss along with media, peers and social pressures, greatly affects the development of eating disorders.
Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa are eating disorders that can be dangerous or fatal. These disorders often occur during teenage years and can be commonly diagnosed on teenage girls. Although both disorders are characterized by excessive fear of getting fat, Anorexia and Bulimia are quite different from each other. Anorexia exhibits dramatic weight loss and fears eating. Her self-image is distorted, and her ideal body is unrealistic. Simply put, anorexic people, because of their fear of getting fat, does not eat real food. They tend to munch on paper or anything that they think has no calorie amount to satisfy their hunger.
Bulimia is the complete opposite of anorexia. Bulimic people also have health and weight loss issues. Bulimia is harder to diagnose than anorexia because bulimic people is not as thin as anorexic people. These people eat- sometimes generously, to satisfy hunger, but after every meal, they vomit what they ate. They also use laxatives or diuretics to eliminate any food they ate. Purging is triggered by putting a finger in their mouth. Because of this, their weight is maintained or it just decreases gradually.
There are no favorable results waiting for anorexic and bulimic patients. There is only pain, and disappointments. If these disorders are not given much attention, consequences can be fatal. Sometimes, even death is the reward for this disorder. Health is an important tool in our lives. It should not be wasted, rather it should be treasured and used wisely.
