What's Worse for Your Health
Smoking or Being Overweight?
Written by Sky Taylor, Diet Bites
The negative impact on health due to smoking and weight gain.
The above question might as well be, "What is worse for your health? Playing with fire or working with fire?" No doubt, in time, someone's going to get burned.
How Obesity Affects the Body
The skeletal frame of the body was built to accommodate a certain amount of weight.
The frame of the body is a bit like an elevator. An elevator can only hold so much weight before it becomes stressed and can no longer sustain the weight.
We could continue to make comparisons - such as a bridge and a certain amount of cars. Or a trampoline and the ability to support a certain about of weight. Or a boat that will sink when too much cargo is added.
But here is the point....
The body works in the same manner as an overloaded boat, elevator, bridge or trampoline. Too much weight on the frame, and the results of strain and stress on the skeletal system can be mirrored by problems that announce their presence throughout the body.
Pain may occur through a backache, a tummy ache, knee aches, leg aches or shoulder aches. The body in motion may become a body needing a medicinal potion in order to move.
The additional weight also plays havoc with the internal organs, as they too were built to accommodate a certain amount of weight. The added weight puts a strain on the muscles - particularly the heart and circulatory system as it must now work harder to pump the blood throughout the body.
And of course, the unexpected fat mashes our vital organs and they strain to perform their vital functions. It's a bit like trying to breathe when we have a shirt collar that is too tight around our necks.
We can still manage to breathe, but it's so difficult - so hard and yes, stressful. They body experiences the same dose of stress as it struggles to break free of the fat and perform in an efficient manner.
How Smoking Affects the Body.
The body was built to breathe air so smoking, even though addictive, is very harsh on the body - to the lungs and heart in particular.
Keep in mind that the lungs go hand in hand with the heart and kidneys to keep the body in tip-top shape. When the lungs are damaged, it places stress on the heart. When the heart is stressed, it places stress on the kidneys.
It's like a chain reaction, much like chain smoking.
Because smoking is so addictive, the smoker may not even realize how the smoke is effecting their body. They may not place that loose cough as a sign that the lungs are in trouble. They may simply nod it off as 'smoker's cough'.
So what is worse, smoking or being overweight?
Although both aren't exactly friends of Health, smoking is generally much harder on the body and may do irreversible damage.
It's also harmful to those individuals as well as pets who may be forced or subjected to second hand smoke. When someone smokes, everyone around them smokes. When an individual over eats, it doesn't impact those around them while they are doing such.
However, over time - both overeating and smoking eventually impacts individuals who are closely related to the smoker or the overweight individual as they must stand by and watch them struggle through health issues caused by their addictions.
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