Specific Purpose: The purpose of this speech is to create awareness about the diseases caused by obesity and how they can be overcome.
Thesis Statement: Obesity is an increasingly prevalent human condition worldwide but no safe and effective drug treatment has yet been found.
Introduction
Obesity has been a growing global issue for decades and is still rapidly growing forming a great threat to human health. It results from over-eating and not exercising which causes the body to create a lot of fat. In today’s world, cheap food with high calories has become business and everyone is eating it. They are prepared from sugar, fats, salt and along with the different inventions that have tied the man to his bed, no longer be able to use his full body, have increased obesity around the world. The World Watch Institution quoted that the number of over-weight people has become a rival of the number of under-weight people. The under-fed population of the world has declined to 1.1 billion since 1980, the total number of over-weight people have also increased to 1.1 billion .
Body
Main Idea 1
Several health diseases have emerged with obesity which includes coronary heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, abnormal blood fats, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, cancer, reproductive problems, gallstones, obesity hypoventilation syndrome, etc. In 1950, mice called obese or ‘ob’ was discovered by Jackson laboratory in which these the obesity is caused in these mice by recessive mutation. These mice weigh triple the weight of normal mice and have an insatiable appetite. Jeffery Friedman, who was a molecular geneticist, wanted to know the reason behind the profound effects on the feeding behavior of the animal, its body weight because of a single defect in the gene. Jeffery started by using the positional cloning method in the 1980s to look for the ‘ob’ gene. In 1995, he discovered ‘leptin’ by cloning the ‘ob’ gene in the mice and homolog in the humans .
Leptin’s discovery showed that the metabolism and food intake is regulated by a robust psychological system, the obesity is a biological problem, and the fat is an endocrine organ. The home-static control of fat mass is maintained by leptin in which the gene is concealed by the fat cells to the stream of blood and then acts so that the brain can regulate the energy expenditure as well as the food intake. After the falling of the fat, the plasma leptin level also falls this stimulating the appetite restraining the energy expenditure until the mass is re-stored. The leptin level also increases with the increase in fat mass, which restrains the appetite until the loss of weight.
Main Idea 2
The discovery of leptin has been beneficial as it is used as a therapy for many obese people in order to treat the metabolic disorder and other types of diabetes, which are life threatening. It has a lot of influence on different mechanisms of human body including wound healing, bone formation, angiogenesis, hematopoiesis, inflammatory and immune response, and reproduction. It also works as a feedback, which sends signals to the brain to regulate body weight and energy and to inhibit the food intake. Many studies have revealed that the hypothalamus is the main center for the regulation of body weight and food intake . It gives the status about the energy stores of the body after being released into the bloodstream by the adipose tissue.
The present recommendation for the obese people is to exercise and decrease the intake of high calories. However if this is not enough, then a medical treatment is required. Many different drugs have been produced in the past decades to treat obesity and even after their approval; a lot of them have been withdrawn from the market due to their unfavorable effects. Even sibutramine, rimonabant have been withdrawn due to a risk of stroke, n-fatal myocardial infarction, and psychiatric disorders. After decades of experiments, a proper drug has not been introduced that would help to omit obesity.
Main Idea 3
The oxidation of ingested food provides all the energy needed to the animals for activities throughout the day. The size of the energy stores after the time of the growth stops remains the same. This is reached by regular food intake that is equal to energy in the body, and leaves no deficits that can cause changes in the energy stored. The increase in expenditure in both man and animal can lead to the same increase in food intake.
Appetite is the name given to the desire of food and hunger is defined to be a sensation, which is evoked by the depletion of the nutrient stores of the body. It is usually said that the psyche of appetite and hunger are the only determinants of the behavior of feeding and they alone fulfill the regulation of intake of food . A common experience also says that the amount of food eaten usually correlates with hunger.
Conclusion
Speaking of obesity as a complicated problem, it not only consists of the health problems but the societal, physiological, and psychological aspects come into consideration. These systems are not easy to handle and banning food that increases obesity only affects the economic conditions of the schools. The schools do not have enough money in order to invest in the different activities related to school. This will prove to be very challenging but it needs the work of legislatures to control the system in a way that is appropriate for all the people. Even when it seems that the solutions found out are working, it might take years to show the intended results. However, this does not mean that we sit down in despair and take it as an excuse of doing nothing about the problem, but instead this should act as a warning to the people who expect simple solutions of the problem of obesity. They should live with caution and expect unexpected things.
Bibliography
Anchell, M. (2006). How I Lost 36,000 Pounds: A New Approach to the Problem of Obesity Scientific and Clinical Facts Concerning Obesity. US: iUniverse, 2006.
Ubel, P. A. (2013). Peter A. Ubel. US: Harvard Business Press.
Whitworth, A. (2009). Information Obesity. US: Elsevier.
