Photo: j.fralin, Flickr

Poor knees. They carry around our full weight every day. And knees that are attached to an overweight body are working overtime.

In addition to heart disease, diabetes, and other conditions, obesity can put you at risk for knee injury and conditions like osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis is a degenerative musculoskeletal disorder that usually develops slowly, but obesity can cause rapid deterioration of the cartilage in the knee. Once you develop osteoarthritis, there's not much doctors can do; treatments revolve around managing the pain, and severe cases may require knee replacement surgery.

Over 300 patients who were at risk for osteoarthritis participated in a recent study. Weight proved to be a big factor in tissue decline; for every one unit increase in body mass index, the chance for cartilage loss jumped by 11 percent.

When it comes to osteoarthritis, the best medicine is prevention:

• Achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Reducing the load your knees have to carry every day is the best way to be kind to your knees. The less stress on the joints, the less quickly tissues will deteriorate.
  
• Exercise. Consistent physical activity -- particularly weight-bearing activities such as walking -- will help strengthen the muscles around key joints and give them more support. Make sure to vary your workouts, too.
  
• Avoid injury. When necessary, wear proper safety equipment to protect your joints. Also, don't let joint injuries go untreated; visit your doctor to have all injuries checked out.
• Good posture. Maintaining good posture can take unnecessary stress off of joints. Check out these three lessons for perfect posture.

If your knees frequently feel stiff, appear swollen or make a popping or crunching noise, visit your doctor to have them checked.