Many of our artiicles have delt with child/adult obesity, and the possible reasons that this is so much a part of our society. A person can eat all day long and snack themselves to death and still be nutritionally defiicient. *According to The Cornell Encyclopedia of Health there are three kinds of nutritional disorders. The first one is caused by a deficiency of nutrients, the second is caused by an excess of nutrients and the third is caused by a poisonous component of certain elements in food.

*Nutritional deficiencies take time to develop in stages and gets increasingly worse over time. It is not until the body has undergone significant changes that we start to see symptoms. If we have a long term problem of inadequate intake of nutrients we become deficent. And, eventually some sore of diesease process can develope. Some of the groups of people who are at risk for this are infants and children, pregnant women, the elderly, vegetarians, drug additcts, alcoholics, people who have malabsorption disorders and those who rely on fad diets. (read our arcicle of fad diets.)

In order for your doctor to come to a diagnosis of nutritional deficiency he must do blood work, a physical examination, and obtain a history from the patient.

*Excess Nutrition is the result of overeating, inadequate exercise, and excess of vitamin intake. Obesity is the most common result of excess intake of nutrients. There are many reasons for excess intake of nutrition, some examples as follows: socialecomonic status, ongoing large intake of food, especially fatty foods, along with an inactive life style. There are a lot of other reasons for obesity such as pregnancy, brain damage, hormone imbalance, some medications, and or psychological factors. The good thing is that excess nutrition can be treated with diet and exercise. Behavior modification is helpful also, because to find success in weight loss we have to make a drastic change in the way we are thinking and do things in relation to eating. There are also surgical interventions to address excess, such as surgical procedures. Lap bans are widely advertised recently, or stomach stappling. Your doctor can determine excess nutritional intake through a BMI or body mass index.

*This is how you would come to calculate your BMI: take your weight in kilograms divided by the square in the height in meters. A BMI of 25-30 are considered overweight and greater then 30 indicates obesity.* If you are interested in figuring this out consult with your doctor.

*The third nutritional disorder is classified as, poisonous elements and results from toxinc or poisious elements in food. Some of thes occur naturally, such as, fungi. Others enter the food system in the form of polluants, pesticides or fertilizers. And, as good as vitamins and minerals are for us, can also become toxic to us if we take in more then we should or need.

Our health problems can be caused from not eating enough nutrients or by taking in too many. They say that too much of anything is not good. If you stop and think about it this a fairly true statement.

We need to find a happy medium between not enough of the right food groups to too much. Either way we are going to have health problems and eventually become ill through some diesease process, weather it is malnutrition or obesity. Obesity can also be considered malnurishment. If we sitck to the basic food groups and eat the recommeded daily allowances of foods we should be ok,

I hope this articles brings to light some questions and offers you information that will help you on your quest for better health and fitness.

*Referenced, The Cornell Encyclopedia of Health*