Obesity

What is obesity?

• An excess proportion of total body fat.
• Considered obese when his or her weight is 20% or more above normal weight.
• Common measure - body mass index (BMI)
• Overweight if his or her BMI is between 25 and 29.9.
• Obese if his or her BMI is over 30.

Subtopic #2 - Mental Health

• contributes to the lack of self-confidence
• Discrimination, difficulty finding employment, and reduced quality of life.
• Psychological effects include depression, embarrassment, and relationship problems.
• Swedish Obese Subjects (SOS) study indicates depression is 3 to 4 times higher in severely obese individuals.

Why I chose it?

Subtopic #1 - Physical Health

• Major and significant issue in our modern day society.
• to know the harms and effects of obesity.
• Society's role.
• Lack of action in eliminating this issue.

• In Canada, about 40% to 60% adults have a weight problem.
• Almost a third of Canadians aged five to 17 are overweight or obese, Statistics Canada finds.
• Higher risk for serious medical conditions such as high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, diabetes, gallbladder disease and different cancers.
• Obesity hypo ventilation syndrome - breathing disorder that affects obese people.

Three questions???

My hypothesis...

Obesity is a serious problem that is growing in Canada and has negative repercussions on individuals and society in general.

1) Is obesity part of genetics?

2) How can we prevent obesity?

3) How does society deal with obesity?

Subtopic #3 - Economic Impact

Relevance to sociology

Canadian Obesity Network

• imposes significant external costs on society through health care expenses and disability payments pooled through group health insurance and public programs.
• Employers have a stake in reducing obesity in the workforce.
• An average firm with 1000 employees faces $285,000 per year in extra costs associated with obesity.
• It has been estimated that obesity cost the Canadian economy approximately $4.6 billion in 2008, up $735 million or about 19% from $3.9 billion in 2000.
• Another study using a comparable methodology and looking at 18 chronic diseases estimated the cost to be even higher, at close to $7.1 billion.

Vision: to reduce the mental, physical and economic burden of obesity on Canadians.

Mission: To reduce the burden of obesity on Canadians by linking obesity researchers with health professionals, policy makers and other stakeholders to foster knowledge translation, capacity building and partnerships.

Investigation

• Largely driven by environmental factors.
• the increased access in transportation.
• Easy access to unhealthy food like McDonalds.
• Fast paced society where people lead an unhealthy lifestyle.

• Passive participation observation
• Scarborough Town Centre food court

• Currently there are more 8800 members that are involved in this network.
• Health professionals
• Researchers
• Policy makers
• Obesity stakeholders
• Help through donations, marathons, workshops, etc.