The Healthy Way Is The Right Way

In the United States, two-thirds of people are overweight and obese according to Healthline. Also, many people are facing problems of being too skinny. People with a fast metabolism will be skinnier than people with a slow metabolism. This is as bad for your health as being overweight.

Risk Factors

There are many health risk factors for being underweight such as
being anemic, vitamin D deficiency, weak immune system etc. Gaining weight is as hard as losing weight. If you are underweight then you might not be eating healthy food that has high nutrients. Which could cause you malnutrition. “Malnutrition refers to deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and/or nutrients. The term malnutrition covers 2 broad groups of conditions. One is ‘undernutrition’—which includes stunting (low height for age), wasting (low weight for height), underweight (low weight for age) and micronutrient deficiencies or insufficiencies (a lack of important vitamins and minerals). The other is overweight, obesity and diet-related noncommunicable diseases (such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer).” Malnutrition can affect you in many ways.

Symptoms:
Feeling tired and sleepy
Getting sick a lot
Having irregular menstrual cycle
Hair thinning

Healthy Food

Many people tend to think that they can eat anything, especially consuming a lot of junk food to gain weight. The answer is, they will gain weight, but it won’t be a healthy weight and it is not a healthy way to gain weight. Junk food is one of the unhealthiest ways to gain weight because you are not adding the healthy nutrition’s that your body needs and it might harm your overall body. There are some tips to gain healthy weight.

Healthy calories: You have to start slowly with your healthy diet. Add nuts, cheese, and fruit as a side dish.
Caloric dense food: Instead of eating junk food, start adding food that is rich in nutrients. Such as high protein meat (chicken, beef, etc.), nutritious carbohydrates (oats, banana, sweet potato, etc.), whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, etc.). These are just a few items to list, but it will help your body to receive a lot of nutrition.
Grab some snacks: Snacking is one of the easiest ways to eat enough protein and carbohydrates. The healthy options are protein bars, protein shakes, peanut butter, carrots, etc.
Small quantity: Instead of eating three big meals, try to divide them up into small portions and eat throughout the day.
Build muscle: You will gain weight if you eat in surplus. But to make a good body shape you also have to work out. You can do yoga and weightlifting to build some muscle. You might need to start with a personal trainer, so you don’t hurt yourself.

Not sure if you are underweight?

The CDC recommends people to use BMI to calculate if they are underweight. Ranges for bMI include:

•  Underweight: less than 18.5
• Normal/healthy weight: 18.5 to 24.9
• Overweight: 25.0 to 29.9
• Obese: 30 or higher

Risk of being underweight:

There are many health issues for underweight people, just like people who are overweight go through different health problems. But side effects depend from person to person. Some people does not have as severe side effect as others who has major symptoms such as: 

Anemia: An individual who is underweight is bound to have low blood count and may feel fatigue, unsteadiness or a loss of balance, and headaches. 

Sick often: if an individual is not consuming enough energy from their diet to have a healthy weight, then they are not consuming healthy nutrients to fight off infections which can cause frequent sickness and are not able to recover fast. 

Osteoporosis: According to Medical News Today, if a woman is underweight she is at the risk of having brittle bone and could be breaking it because of lack of nutritions.

Causes of underweight:

There are various reasons for being underweight. There could be multiple health issues which could be causing a person’s weight.  The causes are: 

Mental health: This is one of the main things that can cause a person’s weight. Poor psychological health can influence an individual’s capacity to eat, including stress, anxiety, or depression.

A high metabolism: If an individual has a fast metabolism, then it will be hard to gain weight. Compared to those who have slow metabolism, they are more likely to gain weight faster.

Family history: Because of physical characteristics that run in the family, they will naturally have low BMI.

Personal Experience: 

I personally have gone from being underweight to trying to gain healthy weight (and still working towards my goal). Last year, I had a perfect weight, but since I had zero knowledge of healthy weight, I thought I had gained a lot of weight and end up losing it. I started my diet and lost a lot of weight, but in an unhealthy way. Due to my diet, I was not consuming healthy nutritions and as a result I lost a lot of muscle. My body did not like what I was doing, and I started getting sick a lot. Every couple weeks I had to go to the doctor’s office because of severe headaches, fever, tiredness etc. I became underweight and my doctor recommended that I should gain weight.

For a few months my body was not in good shape, I was getting sick frequently, getting tired easily, I was not able to concentrate and many things were happening. I started doing some research on how to gain weight. Whatever I read from google, I did everything. But since I have a fast metabolism it was hard to gain weight, but I did gain about 2-3 pounds. Now I have started getting professional help and now I am eating in a calorie surplus and also doing some muscle building exercises at home. I have not gotten to my goal weight yet, but with my new and healthy diet I am very hopeful that I will achieve my goal one day. 

Sources:

What is Obesity?

https://mylivedoctors.com/blog/the-fight-against-malnutrition-

https://slideplayer.com/slide/4102179/

https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/malnutrition

https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/index.html