Why you may need to gain weight
Many articles emphasise weight loss and very few actually talk about gaining weight. Dr Vincent Bakyenga, a general physician at Uganda Health Federation, says: “Conditions such as stress, sickle cell disease, anorexia nervosa; an eating disorder where a person has no appetite for food can prevent one from gaining weight.”
Why you need to gain weight?
People with a low weight are likely to have organ failure because most of your body organs do not have enough energy to keep them functioning properly. It is associated with low energy problems and a weak immune system.
“A low weight person is likely to suffer from anaemia and other malnutritional diseases. Prescribing medicine for such people becomes hard because physicians prescribe to them doses that are meant for children, which may take long to work,” Dr Bakyenga says.
If a woman who is underweight got pregnant, they usually become anaemic and get pregnancy-related complications. They may give birth to underweight babies or if the baby is normal, they are likely to deliver by C-section.
Bakyenga says, “More men than women seek weight gaining tips often but a person may seek to gain or lose weight depending on the Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI is the measure of the body fat based on weight and height among adults. It is calculated as (weight squared in kilogrammes divided by height in Metres. The ideal BMI of a normal person should be between 19.5 to 25square kg/m.
Feeding recommendations
Dr Bakyenga advises that the proportion of food should be heaviest for breakfast, heavier for lunch and less for supper.
“People should restrain from eating too much food before bed time as the body requires a lot of energy to break it down. You will wake up in the morning feeling tired.”
