millions live in danger of obesity and solution is not rocket science ~ Stephen Hawking

Of the modern troubles – Stephen  Hawking  warns saying: "At the moment, humanity faces a major challenge and millions of lives are in danger..."  It is stated that one in three people claiming benefits in UK, that  they are too sick to work have conditions which are fuelled by obesity, a government review has found.

Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have a negative effect on health. Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health. Body mass index (BMI) is a simple index of weight-for-height that is commonly used to classify overweight and obesity in adults. It is defined as a person's weight in kilograms divided by the square of his height in meters (kg/m2).

For adults, WHO defines overweight and obesity as follows:

•           overweight is a BMI greater than or equal to 25; and

•           obesity is a BMI greater than or equal to 30.

•           Worldwide obesity has more than doubled since 1980.

•           In 2014, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 600 million were obese.

•           39% of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight in 2014, and 13% were obese.

•           Most of the world's population live in countries where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight.

•           41 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2014.

•           Obesity is preventable.

Stephen Hawking says millions of lives are in danger as a result of the obesity epidemic - and the solution isn't 'rocket science'

Professor Stephen Hawking says the world faces a 'major challenge' and millions of lives are in danger as a result of obesity. Not only does being overweight raise the risk of developing cancer, it also increases the chances of heart disease - the planet's leading killer. Being obese is also known to reduce life expectancy by up to 10 years. In an advert for a Swedish organisation that aims to boost the health of young people, Professor Stephen Hawking spoke of his concerns about obesity.  In the minute-long clip for GEN-PEP, Professor Hawking said: 'At the moment humanity faces a major challenge and millions of lives are in danger.

'Today too many people die from complications related to being overweight and obesity. We eat too much and move too little. 'Fortunately the solution is simple. More physical activity and change in diet. It's not rocket science. 'For what it's worth, how being sedentary has become a major health problem is beyond my understanding.' The advert finishes with a black screen showing the message that physical inactivity is now the world's fourth leading cause of death.

                       It carries on to provide a helpful tip to viewers, revealing that adults are recommended to be active for 30 minutes each day. Children should achieve double that amount.  Exercising may not make you lose weight – but it will rid you of hidden internal fat stored around your internal organs, research earlier this year found. A study of fitness programs revealed that carrying out between two to six months of endurance training led people to lose either nothing or a minimal amount of weight.  The  good news was it cut hidden internal 'visceral fat' that cloaks our organs and can lead to health problems – particularly type 2 diabetes and heart and circulatory disease.

The findings highlighted how some people can appear healthy, but are actually 'thin on the outside but fat on the inside'. And experts said the situation is only going to get worse as they predicted a fifth of adults will fall into that category within a decade. To avoid an epidemic, scientists say policies are needed to slow down the global increase in body weight. They have also warned that the probability of reaching the World Health Organization's global obesity target - no rise in obesity above 2010 levels by 2025 - will be close to zero. Among proposals removed from the final strategy were plans to force restaurants, cafes and takeaways to put calorie information on menus. Supermarkets would have been forced to remove junk food from around check-outs and the end of aisles and junk-food advertising would have been curbed. In UK, the  final strategy was unveiled in August - and it did include a 'sugar tax' on the soft drinks industry. But doctors, health campaigners and politicians reacted with fury. 

Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA (1942)  is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. His scientific works include a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. Hawking suffers from a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of ALS  that has gradually paralysed him over the decades. 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

5^th Dec 2016.

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