Overweight vs Obesity – What’s The Difference?

The difference between overweight and obesity is merely a way to measure how much heavier you are than you should be. Your desired weight is figured out based on gender and height. You are considered overweight if your BMI or Body Mass Index (a measurement that figures out your body fat percentage by applying a calculation to your weight vs height). According to this way of calculating obesity, you are considered overweight if your BMI is 25 – 29.9 and obese if it is 30 or above. Some simply say that if your weight is 10% over the healthy weight for your height than you are overweight and when you reach 30% overweight, then you are obese.

In addition, morbid obesity is when you are 50% to 100% overweight. This is considered to be life threatening and people who are morbidly obese have a 50% higher risk of death than healthy weight people. The strain on your heart and other organs is immense when you are so overweight and the risk to your health so great that often times surgical procedures are employed to correct the situation.

Whether you are overweight, obese or morbidly obese, you should take steps to lose weight now. This is a serious disease that can adversely affect your health and even shorten your life as well as decrease the quality of life. I know, it’s not that easy to simply lose weight. Many of us that are overweight eat for emotional reasons, not because we are hungry so that adds a layer of complexity to the situation. You need to deal with your reasons for the overeating that makes you overweight before you can start to eat better and you need to be prepared to make the changes that it takes to eat healthy.

There are plenty of online programs that can help the overweight and obese – these programs have great support, recipes, meal planners and weight trackers that you can use from the privacy of your own home. If you don’t want to continue to be overweight, but can’t trust yourself not to snack or hate to cook– get rid of all your food and join a program like Nutrisystem (NutriSystem Weight Loss – Start a 28-day plan & get an extra week free) that sends you food that is healthy and only eat that!

Overweight or obese? Check out our section on online diets – Click Here…

Kick start your diet by starting a walking fitness program

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