Obesity is an Infection: Stop Social Humiliation

Image via: TheCut

The ‘eww’ reaction that you face, just because you are ‘O-B-E-S-E’; is a real mental humiliation.

What you really need to understand is that you are Obese not because you are lazy, but because you are I-N-F-E-C-T-E-D.

Image via: TheCut

Obesity is considered one of the major factors leading to coronary and heart diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, gout, osteoarthritis and related several other health complications. Not only health problems but obesity is also considered socially undesirable leading to depression and other physiological distress.

What is obesity? 

In simple terms, it is an excess accumulation of fat in a body that can harm the health of an individual. In scientific terms, if the body mass index (BMI) is higher than 25, the individual can be considered obese (with variations persisting for boys' BMI and girls' BMI) (Wohlfahrt-Veje, et al 2014).

 

What causes obesity? 

Though various factors are responsible, one stands out among all – ‘A lazy person who eats too much and does less physical labour'. This common thinking puts a lot of mental stress on an obese individual as it creates an unfavourable social environment.

 

An Infection

Now what if this obesity is due to an infection you had in your life and it is the cause of your discomfort? You are trying your best to lose weight but not getting results. Yes, this can happen. This type of obesity is called ‘Infectobesity’ first named by Dr. Nikhil V. Dhurandhar in 2001 and the virus is called ‘Adenovirus serotype 36’ (Dhurandhar and Pasarica, 2007).

The mode of how the virus operates is a mystery but animals subjected to Adenovirus 36 test have shown increased fat deposits in their body as compared to their normal counterparts (Ponterio and Gnessi, 2015). Though it is controversial, scientists have found that this virus is found more in obese individuals than normal healthy individuals correlating the fact that this Adenovirus can be one of the reasons for a ‘Fatty Person’. 

So get tested today.

Sources:

Dhurandhar, N.V. and Pasarica M. (2007) Infectobesity: obesity of infectious origin. Adv Food Nutr Res. 2007; 52:61-102.

Ponterio, E. and Gnessi, L. (2015) Adenovirus 36 and Obesity: An Overview. Viruses 7(7):3719-3740 · July 2015 

Wohlfahrt-Veje, C., Tinggaard, J., Winther, K., Mouritsen, A., Hagen, C. P., Mieritz, M. G., de Renzy-Martin, K. T., Boas, M., Petersen, J. H., Main, and K. M. (2014). Body fat throughout childhood in 2647 healthy Danish children: agreement of BMI, waist circumference, skinfolds with dual X-ray absorptiometry. Eur. J. Clin. Nutr., 68(6), pp.664–70.

Further Readings:

Awad, M. (2016) 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl: Fiction. Penguin Books

Doerfler, W. (Edts. 2011) The Molecular Biology of Adenoviruses 3: 30 Years of Adenovirus Research 1953–1983 (Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology). Springer

Joyner, J. (2010) Designated Fat Girl: A Memoir. skirt!

Walker, S. (2015) Dietland: a wickedly funny, feminist revenge fantasy novel of one fat woman’s fight against sexism and the beauty industry. Atlantic Books