According to the Obesity Society, 59 million Americans”or 31 percent”are categorized as being obese. In addition, no state in the United States has reached the objective of Healthy People 2010, a government program designed to reduce the amount of obese people to 15 percent per state. Instead, latest statistics show that the obesity rates in each state ranged from 18.7 percent to 32 percent. All in all, this shows that obesity continues to be a significant issue for Americans.
Obesity
Obesity is defined as an excess amount of adipose”or fat”tissue in the body. Doctors generally use Body Mass Index (BMI), which is essentially a height-to-weight ratio, to determine if someone is obese. If a person has a BMI of 30 or more, they are considered obese. For example, a person who weighs 203 pounds, and stands at a height of 5'9'', has a BMI of 30 and is considered obese.
It is widely recognized that obesity causes a whole host of health-related issues, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertension, cancer, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, and gallbladder disease. However, doctors are also discovering that obesity can contribute to muskeloskeletal disorders such as back pain.
When you think about how the body is designed, it does make sense. The main job of our spine is to carry and distribute the weight of our body. When the body is carrying excess weight, the spine has to do extra duty. The result can be damage to the spine, which results in back pain.
How, exactly, does obesity contribute to back pain?
Poor body fitness, coupled with a lack of exercise, causes the muscles in the back, pelvis, and thighs to become weak. At the same time, these areas become very inflexible. The weakness and lack of flexibility cause significant strain on the lower back, causing it to curve. This, in turn, causes the pelvis to jut out. This lack of poor posture can cause a chain reaction all the way up the spine, eventually resulting in the entire structure of the spine becoming compromised and weak.
To complicate matters further, the poor diet and inactive lifestyle of many obese people can affect both the strength and density of the spinal vertebrae, and can eventually result in osteoporosis. Extra body weight can also put pressure on and do damage to the facet joints in the spine, resulting in osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis.
About 80 percent of all people will experience back pain at some point in their lives, and for most of those people, the pain will resolve on its own within two weeks or so. However, people who are obese are more likely to have recurring or unresolved back pain that eventually turns into a more serious condition.
