When are we overweight?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) formally classifies people with a BMI of 25 or above as "overweight". "Obesity" is a BMI of 30 or more. But the evidence shows that as the percentage of the population with a BMI of 21 and above rises, communities should begin diverting significantly increased resources into health service provision. More and more people will appear in hospitals with weight-related health problems. Although these points on the scale are somewhat arbitrary, they nevertheless provide a useful guideline. To give you an idea of the scale of the problem, the WHO’s global projections published in 2005 indicated that:

• among adults aged 15 years or more, 1.6bn were then overweight; and
• not less than 400m adults were obese.

If the current trends continue, the WHO projected that, by 2015, 2.3bn adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese. As an indicator of a potential time bomb waiting to explode, 20m children under the age of 5 years were overweight in 2005. At the other end of the weight scale, there were 854m undernourished people in the world in 2003. But with improving standards of living, they will soon add extra calories and carbohydrates to their diets.

The role of education

The WHO has a number of programs to encourage countries to develop their education services to deliver a stronger set of warnings about body weight and to teach better eating habits. Schools are also to allocate more time to physical exercise in the hope that habits formed young may carry over into adulthood.

The theory is that any changes among the young will slow the rate at which the epidemic of obesity spreads. This also offsets the evidence that adults do not exercise and have bad eating habits. The majority of adults who begin a diet fail to continue for more than three months and they rarely exercise. The only way in which countries can seriously fight this failure rate is either by:

• changing the culture so that the majority of people disapprove of those who are overweight — this may involve changing the stereotypes of beauty or our perceptions of what constitutes a disease, and bring real peer pressure on people to lose weight; or
• develop new “magic” drugs that will enable people to shed those pounds without having to do anything more than swallow a tablet.

Are there new drugs available?

As it is, there are no magic medications. You have to rely on the tried and tested products like Ionamin in combination with lifestyle changes. That means you have to eat a healthier diet based on low-calorie foods, watch how much you eat, and do some gentle physical exercise. Medical science cannot make it any easier for you, but Ionamin works best when you carry through on the diet.

Think what the alternative is.

The greater your BMI, the greater your risk of heart diseases, diabetes and so on.

The role of diet and exercise

We wish we could tell you that all you had to do was to take Ionamin and your problems would be solved. But losing the weight is not enough on its own. You have to keep the weight off. And we warn you that it is not safe to take a drug like Ionamin for long periods of time. The only safe way to use Ionamin is in short bursts of a few weeks at a time. You keep the weight from returning by continuing the low-calorie diet and exercising.

As with all questions affecting your health, there is no real substitute for talking to your own doctor. Your weight is a powerful force for good or bad health. It is important that you bring your body into the safe BMI. There are so many conditions that will make you ill if you carry extra pounds and do not act now. Your doctor will tell you that there are no easy answers. As it stands, a combination of Ionamin and diet and exercise are your best solutions for losing weight (remember only to take Ionamin — do not take several appetite reduction products at the same time). Whether you can carry through to better health is a matter of will power. Let’s hope you have enough.