The 8700

Obesity is considered by many in the health industry as the biggest health problem in our society. The issue is that when people are heavily overweight it has an impact on many of the body’s systems. There are many diseases and conditions that are made significantly worse, or even brought on, by a person weighing more than they really should, including; diabetes and heart conditions.

I remember once being told by my Doctor that for every extra kilogram of body weight, the heart has to pump blood an extra kilometre. This obviously puts the heart and other organs under increased stress.

Western countries have a rapidly increasing diabetes rate and this is being attributed to the increase worldwide in obesity. Diabetes has two forms, Type 1 which requires insulin injections several times a day and Type 2 which can be diet controlled. People with diabetes can eventually lose limbs from the poor blood flow that is a symptom of the disease. It is having a serious impact on our society and is costing the economy a lot of money.

Governments everywhere are trying a whole variety of methods to try and reduce the increasing obesity rate around the world. New laws are being put in place across the world, including the requirement for large quick serve chains to display the energy content of each of their menu items.

In New South Wales, the state government has just introduced a brilliant new website which focusses on the key issue of controlling obesity, getting people to eat less and better, as well as do exercise.

It is a simple fact that if we eat more than our body needs, we put the excess on as fat and our weight increases. So there are two things we can do to prevent this fat being deposited, we eat less or we burn up the fat by exercising. Ideally we should do both to be healthy.

The new website is called 8700.com.au and is named after the average energy consumption by a healthy adult. It has some truly brilliant information and a great little guide to help you work out how much energy you do for your age, gender and activity level.

The website also talks about why many people actually put on more weight in winter than in summer and what they can do about reducing that.