‘Obesity taking toll on health of people’

Srinagar, Jan 27: Muhammad Adil, who is in his thirties struggled with his weight for most of his life. Despite trying various diets and lifestyle changes, he was unable to lose significant weight and was considered obese.

His weight was having a negative impact on his health, and he was at risk of having diabetes, heart disease, and sleep apnea.

Adil’s doctor recommended that he should consider weight loss surgery. After careful consideration, Adil decided to go through with the surgery. He underwent a gastric bypass procedure, which involved reducing the size of his stomach so that he would feel full faster and eat less.

Like Adil, many people in Kashmir struggle with their weight despite their best efforts to diet and exercise.

Dr (Prof) M R Attri, Professor of Surgery at GMC Srinagar told Greater Kashmir that overweight and obesity are killing people all over the world and J&K is not the exception.

Dr Attri said that all international and national bodies on Cardiac, Diabetes and Heart associations recommend weight loss surgery for people who can’t control it by medicine.

Recently, he presented his work on Laparoscopic weight loss surgery, Bariatric surgery .

“Obesity is a balance between more calories we take and less we consume so we put on weight. So, this balance between intake of calories and output of calories has to be maintained. We have to keep a healthy lifestyle like regular walks, gym or resistance exercises to control weight, “Dr Attri said.

He said Laparoscopic weight loss surgery, Bariatric surgery not only controls weight for a persistent period of time but also treats the comorbidities like Diabetes, Hypertension, infertility, joint problems.

“In this surgery we remove 80 percent of the stomach or do gastric bypass surgery which helps us to lose weight up to 80 percent of overweight people,” he said.

As per the survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare,  31.7 percent of men in J&K are obese or overweight.

Besides that, 29.4 percent women in J&K are overweight or obese. Dr Attri said that we all need to spread awareness and take measures to control obesity.

“This is an epidemic where both individuals and Government have to frame policies for health education of people , spreading awareness regarding obesity that obese people die much earlier than the normal persons,” Dr Attri said.

He said that people should use bicycles, climb stairs rather than use escalators and hit the gym.

According to the Lancet study, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in adolescents and young adults is dramatically increasing. Similar to older-onset type 2 diabetes, the major predisposing risk factors are obesity, family history, and sedentary lifestyle.