8 Reasons to Slim down for Good

Looking to slim down & need inspiration? Here are 8 reasons to lose the extra weight.

Reason 1: Reduce your risk for Cancer

Overweight women have four times the endometrial cancer risk, probably for the same reason they’re at increased risk for breast cancer: Body fat produces estrogen, a hormone linked to both diseases.

Reason 2: You stay sharp

Obese people, particularly those with large bellies at midlife, are 260% more likely to develop dementia. And the bigger the belly the greater the risk, perhaps because of hormones or inflammatory factors produced by the abdominal fat itself.

Reason 3: Your heart is safer

The bigger you are the more likely you are to suffer a heart attack earlier in life—12 years sooner for the most obese, a study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology says. And overweight people are more likely to have diabetes and high cholesterol.

Reason 4: You feel less depressed

There’s an association between obesity and depression, according to a recent study of 4,600 women between the ages of 40 and 65. About 6.5 percent of the women who had a normal body mass index (BMI) were depressed, whereas the disorder afflicted more than 25 percent of those with BMIs higher than 35.

Reason 5: Your workouts are easier

Obese women have more aches and pains than normal-weight women, and they worry about injury or just feel too overweight to work out. And many say they are too self-conscious to go to a gym.

Reason 6: Fertility

Obese women are twice as likely as normal-weight women to have a pelvic-floor disorder. According to researchers for the National Institutes of Health’s Pelvic Floor Disorders Network, pelvic-organ prolapse (when the uterus, bladder, small intestines or rectum sag into the vaginal area) can affect a womens ability to become pregnant.

Reason 7: You protect vital organs

Swedish researchers have reported that being overweight triples the risk of chronic renal failure (CRF), a gradual, irreversible loss of kidney function. The researchers estimate that obesity causes 11 percent of CRF cases in women. Likewise, having a higher BMI increases the risk of gallbladder disease, according to researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

Reason 8: Your joints feel less stressed

Arthritis cases attributed to obesity rose from 3 percent in 1971 to 18 percent in 2002, according to researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

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