With summer around the corner, many look to improving their health and weight.

Maintaining a healthy weight is imperative to being healthy and preventing certain ailments.

With many snack foods available in the U.S., weight gain does not seem unlikely. Gaining weight as one ages is very probable and occurs frequently.

According to the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute, on average, one to two pounds can be gained yearly by those between the ages of 18 and 49.

Even though weight gain does occur, it’s dangerous. Maintaining a healthy weight can prevent many diseases.

In addition to lowering the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and high blood pressure, maintaining a healthy weight can also lower the risk of many different cancers, according to the Harvard School of Public Health’s website.

Mary-Jon Ludy, an assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University, says being overweight can stem from being on campus where there is constant access to food, less physical activity than in high school and, in some cases, alcohol consumption.

Ludy teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in the food and nutrition program and researches patterns of weight change in college students. She said being involved in activities on campus and making smart eating choices can lower the risk of being overweight.

Maintaining healthy weight needs to be a lifestyle decision, one that encompasses every aspect of a person’s life, said Faith Yingling, director of Wellness Connections.

“I think what people need to really think about is a healthy lifestyle and how to maintain that over time, how to get moving, and eat nutritiously, reduce stress, those types of things,” she said.

Yingling said not to focus on weight, but rather on a healthy lifestyle because healthy life decisions are the things that stave off chronic disease. As an example, deciding not to drink a soda saves 200 calories, she said.

Both women feel that exercise and a healthy diet are keys to successful weight maintenance.

“It isn’t much more complicated than that,” Ludy said.

One way to assess health is using Body Mass Index, BMI, to determine what a healthy weight is.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention website illustrates how to calculate BMI. In order to find it, the site says to take weight, divide it by height squared, and multiply that number by a conversion factor of 703. Healthy BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9.

However, BMI can be misleading in some cases.

If someone is more muscular, Yingling said, their BMI could be higher, which can be misguiding because they aren’t overweight.

Another way to assess healthy weight is to do daily weight checks and look at the average range weekly, said Kimberly Fischer, a state tested nurse’s aide at Interim and Meadows of Leipsic.

Ambulation, the ability to move or walk around, is a problem for being under or overweight, she said. If a person is too skinny, she said, they have no strength to move and if someone is overweight, they may not be able to carry their own weight.

Overall, sustaining a healthy weight helps to create better health.

There are seven things Jenny Block, a writer at PolicyMic.com, says one can do to attain this goal.

The things, she says, are to rid your diet of artificial sweeteners, cut back sweets, take probiotics for the digestive system, and portion plates with veggies, starch and protein. Furthermore, she said to get 30 minutes of cardio a day, buy an organic product at the grocery store and eat more vegetables such as cabbage, kale and broccoli.

“Exercise. Even if it’s going for a quick walk down the hallway,” Fischer said. “[Eat] three meals a day. And of course, drink fluids.”