More than 50% of pets are overweight - is yours?

The increase in pet obesity over the last 15 years is staggering. In fact, it’s the number one health risk our pets face.

Hill’s Pet Nutrition is highlighting the serious threat of pet obesity and how the right food can help.

Hill’s has been raising the dangers of pet obesity for over 20 years and has heard all the excuses from pet parents: “chubby is cute”, “he’s just big boned”, “ah, but how can I resist those eyes,” “it’s just puppy fat,” “but he’s so happy…”

Unfortunately, 90% of pet parents don’t recognise that their pets are overweight. Research highlights that overweight pets:

• Have shorter lives
• Are at higher risk of debilitating diseases like arthritis, bladder, skin problems,heart disease, diabetes and even cancer
• And very importantly, are less happy than lean ones…

Treating our loved ones with food is a way we show them how much we love them. It’s part of our culture and tradition. Dogs and cats, like most pets, are not going to turn their noses up at food. However, titbit treating can create fussy eaters, unbalanced diets loaded with fat and begging behaviours that are really hard to resist.

As humans we know this all too well, but strict calorie restriction is hard to stick to and rebound weight gain is common. It’s so demotivating that long-term success is almost never achievable.

This is where the RIGHT food and nutrition comes in. Hill’s Prescription Diet Metabolic has been formulated with the use of nutrigenomic technology, making it very different to any other food around. Why?

Because lean and obese pets are metabolically different:

• Obese pets can’t metabolise fat well, they have impaired glucose metabolism and impaired appetite control.
• Lean pets are great at burning calories, have better appetite control and don't store fat as easily.

What’s more is that in lean pets, certain genes controlling fat metabolism are much more active, allowing the pet to burn more fat and store less. In obese pets, these critical pathways are down regulated, so less fat is burned and more fat is stored.

One way to think about this is that the genes you are born with are like the cards you are dealt. You can’t change your ‘hand,’ however what you can change is how your ‘hand’ is played, (or how your genes are expressed). Gene expression can be influenced by nutrients – obtained from the food we eat!

Hill’s has found specific nutrients and ingredients that shift the metabolic profile of obese pets to the more efficient, “fat burning” profile of lean pets. This is the technology that makes Hill’s Prescription Diet Metabolic more powerful than a traditional weight-loss food that relies on calorie restriction.

So, in simple terms it works by kick-starting a pet’s natural ability to burn fat, which means more effective weight loss than with a simple calorie restricted food. Hill’s Prescription Diet Metabolic is the only therapeutic weight management food that has been proven to work the way people feed their pets, in real homes with real pet parents who have busy lives. They’ll lose weight and keep it off!

So how do you know your pet is overweight?

You probably won’t…

Remember 9 out of 10 pet parents of overweight pets mistakenly think they aren’t. Which is why you should ask your vet for a free weight check.

Prescription Diet Metabolic is also available in formulas to support concurrent conditions :

• Weight and joint issues in dogs
• Urinary and weight issues in cats

To find out where you can take your pet for a free weight check and for more information visit petslimmer.co.za