The Truth About Unintentional Weight Loss
How about not doing anything at all – no diets, no exercise, but you still lose weight. After all, exercising is tiring and time consuming; and healthy eating is usually blah.
Unintentional weight loss is, from the word unintentional itself, an involuntary decrease in a person’s body weight. This means that a person has not tried to lose weight through weight loss efforts such as exercising and dieting.
Unintentional weight loss does happen to plenty of people. You might think them lucky, but they are not. Unintentional weight loss may seem like any dieter’s dream come true, but it is not brought about by just nothing at all. Usually, it is caused by an underlying condition or illness.
Causes of Unintentional Weight Loss
There are numerous factors that cause unintentional weight loss. Illnesses such as AIDS, Cancer, chronic diarrhea, eating disorders, infections, malnutrition and mouth sores are common causes.
Other lifestyle factors that can cause unintentional weight loss are depression, drug use and abuse (especially drugs like amphetamines and laxatives), manipulative behavior in children, eating disorders and mouth braces.
Of course, these illnesses or lifestyle factors are mostly things that you wish you wouldn’t have. Which then leads us to the question – would you rather lose weight easily and unintentionally because you have any of these underlying factors – or would you rather have that excess weight and have no underlying illness at all?
When To Call For Help
So, how do you know when to call for help? There are incidents when weight loss comes unexplained – and if it does happen to you over a course of six to twelve months, then you need to contact your doctor. If there are other symptoms that occur along with weight loss, then it’s also a sign that you need to call the doctor, too.
What To Expect From Your Health Care Provider
To find out more about your unintentional weight loss, your doctor or health care provider will be asking you plenty of questions and will perhaps run several tests in order to trace the origin of your unexplained weight loss.
If your weight loss is caused by a lifestyle factor such as drug use or abuse or mental issues like eating disorders and depression, then you will be recommended to undergo psychological treatment. Weight loss caused by dental problems will mean that you will have to visit the dentist to treat the underlying problem.
For illness – related weight loss, it is of course imperative that the disease or the illness be treated first. Tube feeding may also be needed in the meantime in order to help maintain proper nutrition and in order to prevent poor muscle healing, edema and poor healing.
For all cases, you may need to see a dietitian to help you with issues regarding proper diet.
Losing weight unintentionally may sound and seem enticing for most people who want to shed off the pounds. But the truth is, most of the time, it is caused by something that isn’t.
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