It is a proven fact that chronic back pain and weight gain can go hand in hand. Of course weight isn’t the only cause of back pain, but the lumbar region of the spine, which is your lower back, supports the whole weight of the upper body and is the most sensitive part of the back. Gaining weight puts more stress on the tendons, muscles, joints, bones, and ligaments of the back. Statistics show that about eighty five percent of the U.S. population is affected with chronic back pain and almost half of the entire world’s population is affected with it.

Lets take a look at how weight gain can cause back pain. First lets look at how the back works. As mentioned earlier the lumbar region or lower back is what supports your upper body weight. But it is also the part of the back that does most of the work for the activities that your body does such as running, walking, exercising and even when you sit or stand. It has the most flexibility to adjust to the different tasks and various constraints that the body carries out. Therefore it is the part of the back that is most apt to succumb to stress, trauma and even injury.

The stomach being on the front side of the spine can have a big effect on it. Gaining weight in the stomach area, which is where most people do gain weight, causes the lower back to work harder when doing those everyday activities mentioned earlier. In time it start to run into problems like every machine that is over worked. One of the best proofs that weight gain can cause back pain is with pregnant women. When women are pregnant they always complain of back pain and as the pregnancy progresses and they gain more weight the pain worsens. But after the birth and the pregnancy ends and the weight is lost there is no more complaining about back pain.

Carrying extra weight and forcing your back to do extra work can damage the discs in the vertebrae, cause the spine to have an unnatural curve and affect your posture. In the worst case the extra weight can cause a slipped disc and a fracture of the spinal column. It can also worsen the bone damage in osteoarthritis and osteoporosis.

The solution that naturally comes to mind for ending the back pain caused by the gained weight is to lose the weight. However the weight gain can make it harder to do some of the exercises needed to lose the weight. Exercises like weight lifting, jogging or running, high contact sports and high impact exercises increase the risk of making your back pain worse and injuring the back farther. You should avoid exercise where you have to put your body into positions of extreme flex or extension.

Exercises like swimming are a good way to lose weight if you have back pain, but you should avoid strokes that forces you to twist your head or upper body. Yoga and Pilates are also good exercises if you have back pain. Yoga gradually progresses the complexity of motions and allows the body to disperse its weight effectively to sustain balance and posture naturally. Pilates stresses body betterment by increasing muscle tone, length and flexibility instead of building up muscle density. Before starting any exercise regiment you consult with your doctor to make sure it is okay.

As you can see there is a connection between chronic back pain and weight gain. But you can also see that by losing the weight you cannot only ease that pain you can even rid yourself of it.