The location of fat on your body is very important. Those who carry fat mainly around their waists may be more likely to develop health issues than those who carry their extra baggage in their hips and thighs. Even if your BMI falls within the normal range, this is true. To measure your waist circumference, place a tape measure around your naked abdomen just above your hip bone. The tape should be snug, parallel to the floor and shouldn't compress your skin. Relax and exhale as you measure your waist.

Women with a waist measurement of more than thirty-five inches or men with a waist measurement in excess of forty inches might have a higher risk than people with smaller waist measurements.

Causes of Our Expanding Waistlines

There is often more than a single cause for expanding waistlines. A few of the of the factors may include:

Age

As you get older, your body's metabolism slows down somewhat and does not require quite as many calories to maintain its weight as it once did. This is the reason you might be forty years old with a similar lifestyle to when you were twenty but may notice a slight difference: at twenty you did not gain weight, but now at forty, you do.

Drugs and Medication

Some drugs like steroids and various antidepressants may cause weight gain.

Gender

Women tend to experience unwanted weight gain more so than men. Men burn more calories when they are resting, this requiring more calories to maintain their ideal body weight. In addition, when women enter the doors of menopause, their metabolic rate decreases substantially, which is part of the reason that females gain so much weight after menopause.

Genetics

A propensity to gain weight or remain trim runs in family lines. Some research studies show that genetics play a larger role in weight even than environment. Although some statistics show that if your biological mother is heavy, than there is a seventy-five percent chance you will be heavy, it does not mean you should feel doomed because of your genes. Most individuals who are bilogically predisposed to be heavy or trim can certainly overcome it.

Environmental Factors

Though genes are important, a person's environment plays an important role as wekk. An individuals's lifestyle, behaviors, diet and how active he or she is all are environmental factors.

Physical Activity

People who are very active require additional calories than those who are sedentary in order to maintain their weight. Interestingly, physical activity actually reduces one's appetite while at the same time increasing the body's natural ability to metabolize fat into energy.

Psychological Factors

Many of us are psychologically conditioned to eat in reaction to negative emotions such as boredom, anger, sadness and stress, among others. This also means binge-eating, where large quantities of food are uncontrollably consumed.

Illness

Rare illnesses can cause weight gain like hormone problems such as hypothyroidism, where a bad thyroid slows down metabolism considerably. Depression and other rare brain illnesses can also lead to the abuse of food. More dieting information can be found at Zone EZ Diet in a Box. There you will find expert advise from Zone Diet creator Dr. Barry Sears.

Ryan Joseph is a writer/researcher. More information is available about the Zone Diet Plan at http://www.zone-products.com