With obesity on the rise world wide, Gulf News explores the reasons behind the increase in the rate of obesity here in the UAE. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00I was 152 kilos.
00:10I was last year around 196, almost 197 kgs.
00:18My current weight is 97 kgs.
00:23Obesity has become a global epidemic with the World Health Organization warning that
00:27one third of the world's population are now thought to be obese or overweight.
00:32And a study by University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation stated that
00:37here in UAE, 60% of nationals are thought to be obese or overweight.
00:43But what is obesity and what are its health implications?
00:47Obesity is a condition, let's say, that people have it either genetically or environmentally.
00:57Obesity in itself, there's a definition.
00:58So they say the BMI over 30, it's weight over your height in meters squared.
01:07So if that's over 30, then that means the person is obese.
01:10The obesity is the excess of fatty tissue, not muscle, fatty tissue.
01:20If you are obese, you are abusing your body in all types.
01:26Diabetes type 2, that's for sure.
01:28Cardiovascular disease, lack of arteries, that's sure.
01:31Cancer, it's related, because when you're obese, more those free radicals that comes
01:40of oxidations, which abuse your cells.
01:43So your immunity low, then you will have the attack of cancer.
01:47You will have lung diseases, you will have skin diseases, you will have all kinds of
01:51diseases.
01:52Osteoporosis, gout, name it.
01:57Obesity can lead to so many problems.
02:00Mohamed is 29 years old.
02:02Being the eldest child in his family, he was showered with love, which was often in the
02:06form of food.
02:08In 2013, he was weighing over 180 kilograms.
02:12One of the most problem is I cannot breathe at night, once I am sleeping.
02:20Then once I get up early morning to go for my work, I feel pain on the side which I sleep
02:26on it.
02:27Eventually, Mohamed's knee could not handle his excess weight anymore, and it collapsed.
02:32Two serious operations, followed by months in bed, made him determined to lose his excess
02:37weight.
02:38From this point, I decide to change my life, and I start for many things and to do many
02:46plans.
02:47I try many times a diet plan, but the problem is I did not succeed in that diet.
02:56For many reasons, I discovered that diet is not worth without exercise.
03:02It was in a little gym, tucked away in a warehouse, in Al-Khoz area of Dubai, that Mohamed found
03:07the help he needed to accomplish his weight loss goals.
03:11I saw Mohamed about a year ago, and literally, he was super smiley as he is now, but he was
03:18unable to sit on a normal chair.
03:21I had to get him to sit on a couch, which was made for two or three people, and he was
03:26sat on the edge of it.
03:27I had a guy who was pushing 170 kilos, had just recovered or was recovering from some
03:34knee operations, and basically he just said to me, I need to change this, and I know I
03:38need to change it.
03:39I asked him how old he was, and when he told me how old he was, I was like, yes, you really
03:44do need to change it, because within a very short period of time, and I told him that
03:48if he carried on like he was, he had a good chance of being dead within about five years.
03:53It's taken Mohamed a year to lose that weight.
03:55Now, he had a lot of weight to lose, but what I said to him is, the only way that we're
03:58going to get this weight off you and keep it off you is if we develop good lifestyle
04:03habits.
04:04We started off with his food.
04:06That was fun.
04:07We tried to fix his food, and we did it bit by bit with him.
04:11When you're used to eating that quantity of food and that quantity of bad food, it's very
04:15difficult to suddenly change, so that was the biggest challenge.
04:18I said to him, I said, yep, you're going to come and train, but we couldn't do a whole
04:22lot with him.
04:23You imagine a guy who's pushing 170 kilos, he doesn't fit on a chair, so if you imagine
04:28anything that's designed for normal human beings, he wasn't a normal human being.
04:32We had to modify a lot of stuff for him.
04:35We did get him moving because he was very, very, very bad at moving, and that's why he
04:40had bad legs.
04:41He had knee operations through bad movement, through all this weight going through him.
04:45So we just started really simply fixing his food, fixing his sleep patterns, they were
04:49terrible too, and then fixing his movement, which the movement, as I said, it's really
04:54the icing on the top of the cake.
04:57If we were unable to fix his food, we would have never got the results that we did.
05:01Not everyone manages to lose weight by diet and exercise.
05:04Abdul Ghafoor injured his back playing rugby, which stopped him from exercising.
05:09I went to the hospital, I had, I was choking at night.
05:14I wasn't breathing at night.
05:16My oxygen level for normal people is 98, 99 percent.
05:20For me, it started to reach below 30.
05:24That's why doctor said, even you have to put oxygen mask, or you have to do surgery to
05:29burn the extra meat inside your throat, or you lose weight.
05:36The surgery was like, my sound will go.
05:40They gave me 80 percent that my sound will go.
05:43So I said, I will lose my weight.
05:45How I can?
05:46I started diets.
05:47I started, but diets without sport still was decreasing, again increasing again.
05:54So I searched online, and I found that gastric surgery.
06:01So I did the surgery before four months now, and I lost 45 kilos still now.
06:06With surgery becoming more accessible, there is a rise in the number of people who choose
06:10surgery over a healthy diet and exercise.
06:13Today, more patients coming for evaluation, for assessment, need a surgery or, but as
06:23all, first we recommended non-surgical option, if patient can do, is better.
06:32This is my first recommendation.
06:35If they can lose weight by diet and sport, I don't recommend the surgery.
06:41Because anything it is, it's a surgery.
06:44You go under doctors and cutting yourself.
06:48So by diet and sport, it's better, healthier.
06:54The easy availability of fast food and the lifestyle in UAE are viewed as factors that
06:59are contributing to the rise in obesity.
07:01People are making poor decisions when they're ordering food.
07:04If you make the right decisions when you're ordering food, immediately you're going to
07:08change.
07:09Another thing that we're really good at doing is being as inactive as possible.
07:12We will circle as humans, and definitely in Dubai, around car parks over and over and
07:17over to park as close to the door as we can.
07:20I'd encourage everyone to park 800 metres from where they're at, and you will get 800
07:24metres of exercise on the way to the shop and 800 metres on the way back.
07:28But if you think about it, if you're not moving, that's 1.6k of movement you've done without
07:35actually having to join a gym, so it hasn't cost you any money, you haven't had to buy
07:38any fancy workout gear, and you haven't felt uncomfortable because maybe you're not comfortable
07:43in that environment.
07:44Diabetes type 2 is one of the many serious health risks which is associated with obesity.
07:50First of all, 50% of people who have diabetes, especially type 2, don't know that they have
07:56diabetes.
07:58So it's very important to screen.
08:01So if they have a bit of a tummy and family history of diabetes, they have an unhealthy
08:07lifestyle, it's very important that they screen.
08:10Because once you catch it as pre-diabetes stage, it's like a yellow card, right?
08:18You can reverse it.
08:19Two years ago I got a shock of my life when I went to the doctor to get treatment for
08:27a different illness altogether, and then I was asked to perform my blood test.
08:34I never really had an idea that it could actually make me discover something.
08:42The problem was there, and it was just not discovered for all these years.
08:47I just went ahead with the blood test thinking it's normal, and this is only for the current
08:53issue that I have.
08:54And then I found out that I was type 2 diabetic.
08:58So type 2, this is what we're talking about, it's not just in the UAE, it's all around
09:03the world.
09:04Their problem is, it's their lifestyle.
09:06You need to be active, exercise in itself, 30 minutes a day, 5 times a week, actually
09:12prevents diabetes.
09:13All my friends my age, they enjoy life, they can do sports, activities, run.
09:18I get tired very, very soon, and I feel upset about it.
09:24My heart makes a lot of effort to pump blood, that's what I was told by the doctors, because
09:29of my bulging waistline.
09:32Does obesity cause diabetes?
09:34Yes, but it's not the obesity that is causing the diabetes type 2, it's actually what is
09:40contributing to the obesity, because there are other people who are quite slim and have
09:45visceral acts of fat, and that's why they have diabetes.
09:49Fatima is not alone.
09:50There are thousands of Fatimas in the country.
09:53We have to start fighting against this epidemic by educating one another and our children
09:58about the importance of a healthy lifestyle.
10:00Play for Life is an annual football tournament that is organised by Imperial College London
10:06Diabetes Centre, as part of its public health awareness campaign, Diabetes Knowledge Action.
10:11The idea is very simple, it's that this is an event or a tournament that pushes the message
10:18of the importance of exercise amongst the corporate world.
10:22The secret of success of weight reduction, if you are 100 kilos, you can't be 60 or 80
10:30with one month.
10:32It has minimum to take one year, six months to one year.
10:36Put that plan gradually, because you have built this body with years.
10:41So don't expect the magician, the dietician, to go back and with a stick, you are shrinking.
10:47It doesn't happen.
10:48A lot of people think, okay, I need to run more, or I need to join this or join that
10:53or join the other.
10:54A lot of the time, it starts way back, and if I was to say there is a secret, the secret
10:59is look within what you are doing and what you have got, and what you are putting in
11:03your mouth.
11:04That's the thing, so many people just don't look at what's going into their mouth.
11:08If you want to make it simple, if I give a few tips, if you make things at home, you
11:14know what you put in.
11:16So that is a very simple advice, that's what I think.
11:20And if you can't read the label, and it makes no sense whatsoever, that's not healthy.
11:27Adopting a healthy lifestyle consisting of a healthy diet and regular exercise can prevent
11:32obesity.
11:33And with public awareness on the rise, and more people taking steps towards better health,
11:37the rate of obesity will decline.
11:40I'm Sarbje Grandpire, Golf News.