World Anti-Obesity Day: Lifestyle modification key to fight obesity, say doctors

New Delhi: On the occasion of World Anti-Obesity day, November 26, Curofy- India's largest community of verified doctors conducted a poll asking doctors about the most effective way to tackle obesity and interestingly 65 percent of them maintained that lifestyle lays a substantial effect on obesity.

Out of 1470 doctors who replied, 950 or 64.6 percent said lifestyle modification is the key to fight obesity.

India is following the footsteps of other developing countries that are steadily becoming more obese, with obesity affecting 5% of the country's population. With easy access to processed food in the country due to global integration of food market, there is an increase in consumption of high sugar and low nutrition diets.

Moreover, with changing lifestyle people are more stressed than before. The race to achieve everything has led to irregular sleep cycles and anxiety disorders.

An increasing number of people suffering from obesity are now opting for bariatric surgeries to lose weight. Bariatric surgery not only helps in losing weight but also reduces the probability of other co morbidity like diabetes, CVD etc.

Mayank Madan, Head, Department of GI,Bariatric Minimal Access Surgery, W Pratiksha hospital, Gurgaon said, "It is always better to take prevent measures to avoid obesity. Today the lifestyle is mostly sedentary. Add to that the stress of achieving everything and we have an unhealthy lifestyle with disturbed sleep cycles. Even children don't go out to play anymore; they would rather be glued to electronic gadgets and play virtual games."

490 or 33.3 percent doctors maintained that dietary changes are the way to go.

"The food has really become fast today," Madan Said.

Adding, "People don't have time to cook their own food and most of the working population relies on the food available outside. This is mostly unhealthy and contributes greatly towards the growing obese population. From children to adults, most of our population is hooked on to fast food now."

Only 2.04 percent or 30 doctors said that bariatric surgery, the last resort measure to curb morbid obesity is the right way to go.

Mudit Vijayvergiya, Co-founder Curofy said, "India is facing a unique problem with obesity. We are one of the highest ranking countries in the world for malnutrition as well as obesity. We tried to find out the reason behind the rise in obesity and the result gives us hope. If we can make some changes in our lifestyle that will save us from a lifetime if illnesses we can change the course of obesity in our country."