5 Ways Your Weight Impacts Your Overall Health

Whether you’re just beginning your weight management journey or you’re a seasoned fitness enthusiast, one critical piece of information applies to all:  Your body weight directly impacts your overall health. 

Understanding these impacts can guide your health decisions and empower you to lead a healthier life. In this month’s blog, Dr. Asif Aziz at Prestige Primary Care in Dallas, Texas, explains the critical connections between weight and health and offers a medically sound way to achieve your health goals. Here are five ways your weight affects your health.

1. Physical health

Your weight has a profound effect on your physical state. 

Heart health

Obesity and related conditions, such as high cholesterol and hypertension, can significantly increase your risk of heart disease. Excessive fat can also lead to a build-up of plaque in your arteries, making it more difficult for blood to flow through and creating a breeding ground for heart-related issues.

Joint health

Carrying additional weight, especially around your midsection, significantly increases the strain on your skeletal framework, mainly affecting your knees, hips, and lower back. 

Every extra pound of body weight exerts roughly four pounds of additional pressure on your knees, which can hasten the wear-and-tear of cartilage and lead to osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis is not merely a condition of old age; it can be precipitated and exacerbated by being overweight or obese at any stage of life. 

Beyond the mechanical stress, fat tissues release substances that promote inflammation, further injuring joint tissues and inducing pain. 

2. Mental health

There’s a complex relationship between weight and mental well-being.

Depression 

Studies show a two-way relationship between being overweight and having depression: Overweight people have a 55% higher risk of depression, and people with depression have a 58% higher risk of becoming overweight or obese.

Self-esteem

How you feel about your body can impact how you feel about yourself, so shedding excess pounds can boost your confidence and self-esteem.

3. Chronic disease 

Obesity can significantly elevate your risk for chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, that affect your life expectancy.

Type 2 diabetes

Abdominal fat increases fatty acids and inflammation, prompting insulin resistance. 

Insulin is a crucial hormone that regulates blood sugar levels. When your cells become resistant to insulin, your pancreas produces even more insulin to keep blood sugar levels regular. 

This overburden eventually impairs your pancreas’s ability to produce insulin, and you end up with high blood sugar and the onset of type 2 diabetes. 

Hypertension

When you’re overweight, your heart has to work harder to pump blood through your body, leading to higher blood pressure and an increased risk of stroke and heart disease.

4. Energy levels

Carrying unnecessary weight can be like lugging around a backpack full of rocks all day, making you feel lethargic and uninspired to do anything.

Excess weight makes you feel sluggish, making it harder to get through your day without relying on caffeine or sugary snacks.

On the other hand, a healthy weight promotes better sleep, better hormone regulation, and overall higher energy levels, allowing you to lead an active life.

5. Longevity and quality of life

A healthy weight and a longer life go hand in hand. 

Studies consistently show that maintaining a healthy weight can add years to your life, particularly when it comes to reducing the risk of obesity-related diseases.

As we mentioned, obesity is linked to a higher incidence of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, which are among the leading causes of death globally. 

Being overweight also leads to reduced physical activity, escalating the risk of further health complications and contributing to a vicious cycle that diminishes lifespan. 

Enhancing overall health through weight management

By managing your weight, you can reduce or even alleviate the need for medication and enjoy a higher quality of health well into your later years — but don’t do it alone.

Self-directed fad diets usually fail, but seeking support from an experienced medical professional like Dr. Aziz can be a game-changer. He provides you with tailored advice, a personalized plan, and the essential accountability factor.

In addition to creating a healthy diet, offering expert nutritional counseling, and developing a daily exercise routine, Dr. Aziz may prescribe appetite suppressants to give you extra support. 

Call Prestige Primary Care or book an appointment online to learn more about our healthy, results-driven, medically supervised weight loss program.