Overweight and obesity
Obesity in Australia has been described as an "epidemic with "increasing frequency." The Medical Journal of Australia found that obesity in Australia more than doubled in the two decades preceding 2003, and the unprecedented rise in obesity has been compared to the same health crisis in America.
A 2005 World Health Organization’s study found that just over 20% of Australian adults is obese, which is expected to rise to roughly 29% in 2010 if current trends continue.
The percentage of overweight and obese children in Australia, despite heavy increases in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, have remained mostly steady for the past 10 years, with 23 to 24% of Australians under the age of 18 classified as overweight, and 5 to 6% of the same demographic classified as obese
According to 2007 statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), Australia has the third-highest prevalence of overweight adults in the Anglo sphere.
If current trends continue, conservatives estimates are that at least one-third of adults, one-fifth of boys and one-third of girls will be obese by 2020
Acupuncture for weight loss
Many people think that acupuncture can give them a quick fix cure. Although acupuncture can help people who overweight or need slight weight adjustment, most acupuncturists will carry out treatment that deals with the underlying cause of problem. Treatment that suppresses the appetite only is not very useful. Unless the cause is dealt with, a person will go back to old habits and the weight will pile back on as soon as the treatment is stopped.
According to TCM principles, development of obesity is due to the following abnormal changes.
1 Over consumption of heavy, greasy and spicy foods or alcohol facilitate production of Heat in the stomach. Meanwhile, inadequate exercise after eating these types of foods damages the spleen function. The over-heated stomach will ripen an excessive amount of food. Therefore, the stomach will digest food easier and make an individual feel hungry, but the spleen cannot handle an excessive food load causing it to under function and be unable to carry out its transformation and transportation functions properly.
2. Exogenous Dampness giving rise to obesity. Invasion of exogenous Dampness or over consumption of greasy foods leads to poor transformation and transportation functions of the spleen. Dampness then begins to accumulate in the middle burner, which is part of the triple burner (the passage through which water, food and fluid are transported).
3. Qi (vital energy) stagnation causes turbid phlegm accumulation. For those who are emotionally disturbed, experience trauma, have menstruation problems or are elderly, the liver can fail to regulate (vital energy flow, which in turn affects digestion, and blood flow. The resulting sluggish qi (vital energy) and flow tend to block the meridians.
4. Kidney essence exhaustion leads to disharmony
Lifestyles, which consume kidney essence, such as being sexually over active can lead to the excitation of the internal ministerial fire. The excessive ministerial fire is a kind of evil fire; which makes the body produce an over abundance of heat. This evil fire affects the middle burner, leading to a malfunction of the stomach and spleen.
From acupuncture experience, the clinical status of a person with obesity can change leading to a complex diagnosis during consultation. The above causes of obesity can appear together or separately. In short, the fundamental causes of obesity are spleen and kidney deficiencies, which manifest as an overflow of body fluids, accumulation of dampness and phlegm and stagnation in blood flow.
During the consultation I will perform pulse diagnosis. Pulse diagnosis is a certain indication of preclinical disease. A little consideration will show that before a disease develops with physical signs and objective findings, there will be, for months or years beforehand, some physiological disturbance that is too slight to cause overt symptoms. A practitioner skilled in its practice would-without ever speaking to or seeing the face or body of his patient and with no more contact than a hand to radial artery of the wrist- be able to arrive at a reliable diagnosis in a matter of minutes. The acupuncturist will at this stage treat the patient, using acupuncture points dictated to him solely by the pulse diagnosis.
I also will recommend some diet routine that may help weight loss and prevent weight gain in the future. This simple diet regime together with acupuncture treatment helps patients to loose up to 15 kilograms in two months under certain conditions
Facial rejuvenation is also available together with weight loss treatment to prevent skin sagging and induce collagen production after loss of fat residue from under the skin