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Obesity
A GLOBAL EPIDEMIC
If you were taught as a child, to clean off your plate, you’re not alone. Almost all of us feel a little guilty about ‘wasting’ good food and not finishing off a serving. There’s no doubt that it’s wasteful to throw perfectly good food out. It would be very nice if somehow it could be mailed to someone who really needed it. But that can’t be done and the fact is, for the first time in history, there are more of us in this world suffering the ill effects of overeating than there are people starving. So even if we mail our leftovers, we’d quickly run out of people to mail to. Return to sender might apply, I’m afraid!. BY PAUL KRAMER
Fast Fact
The typical dinner plate at a restaurant has grown to an average diameter of 12 inches compared with the standard home dinner plate which is nine inches.
The world health organization gives us some shocking statistics - they estimate that 300 million people worldwide are obese and 750 million more overweight. With the rapid rise in obesity, the standards of what constitutes an abnormal level of body fat may have to be redefined.It seems that overweight is the new norm.
But no amount of adjusted standards can turn eating too much into a healthy activity.
Eating more food than your body can use is worse than wasteful, it ’s actually harmful. At least what we throw out isn’t hurting anyone. Next time you’re at a fancy restaurant and feel that you’ve eaten all that you want or need, remind yourself that it’s better to stop there than to overburden your body. Keep in mind that overeating, even if it’s good food, can be another form of body pollution. If you consistently overeat, you’re increasing your body’s storage space in the form of excess fat. There’s a difference between being overweight and being obese. Overweight simply means weighing too much. While some people might be overweight due to large bone structure or athletic muscle mass the majority of the population is simply carrying around too much fat. Being obese is taking this even one step further and having an abnormally high proportion of body fat.
Health experts use a scientific measurement call the body mass index (BMI) to figure out whether or not you have a healthy weight. To make it easy for you to measure, here’s a chart that will show you your BMI in four easy steps:
• Find your height in one of the first two columns
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Slide your finger across to find your weight in pounds
• Slide finger up to find your BMI number (19-35)
• Check along top line to see where your BMI falls (Underweight, ideal, overweight or obese)
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Prevalence of obesity (adults)
It took almost 30 years for the negative health effects of the overindulgent western lifestyle to show up but today’s obesity epidemic is evidence few can miss. Sadly, it’s quickly being exported with every fast-food restaurant that sprouts up in countries around the world. Others have adopted north America’s seemingly ‘trendy’ bad habits and the health effects are showing up almost instantaneously.
Fast-food restaurants made serious inroads in china in the 1990’s, and the number of people eating a high – fat diet soon rose from 23% to 87%. The number of overweight people increased from 9% to 15%. Still a far cry from the USA, where 61% of adults are considered overweight. Obesity has increased by up to 40% in some European countries in Japan, one in three males is over-weight. Part of this alarming increase in Japan can be attributed to fast-food chains now seen everywhere, offering among other things, a Japanese favourite-pizza toped with mayonnaise. The people suffering the most from obesity can be found in the south pacific which has exchanged a physically active culture for what may be the world’s highest rates of obesity. This seems like a losing exchange to me.
General health risks of being overweight or obese
The world health organization has predicted that obesity could soon have as great an impact on health as smoking. Obesity is a risk factor for four of the 10 leading causes of death in the world: heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer. In the U.S., obesity accounts for more than 300,000 premature deaths each year and costs the health care system more than $61 billion annually! Let’s have a look at a few of the negative health implications obesity is related to.
Heart disease: The risk of heart failure doubles in obese people and is one –third higher in overweight people, according to the new England journal of medicine. In addition to this, the life span for overweight people is shorter – on average, they developed heart disease seven years earlier than those of normal weight. ease seven years earlier than those of normal weight.
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Cancer: As well age, the pounds tend to keep creeping up. Is this a cause for concern or should we accept it as a natural consequence of again?
It’s your choice – I would just urge you to make it an informed one. before you answer this question, consider that as small a weight again as half a pound per year or five ponds per decade can increase your risk of cancer.
We know that our risk of heart disease and diabetes rises right along with the scales, but very few people are aware that the cancer risk also increase. One-quarter to one –third of cancer cases around the world are linked to being overweight and physically inactive.
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Diabetes: As rates of obesity rise, so dose the incidence of diabetes. Type 2 diabetes used to be called adult onset diabetes because it was so rare in children. no longer! now children as young as 10 years old have been diagnosed with the disease and the number of children and adolescent with the condition ( most diagnosed in their early teens ) has skyrocketed within the last 20 years. No wonder the journal diabetes care call it an ‘emerging epidemic’. In the U.S., experts estimate that 10-20 percent of all cases of childhood and adolescent diabetes are now type 2, compared with only 2 to 3 percent a few years ago.
Ask for a link to obesity, nearly 80 percent of patients with type 2 diabetes are obese. This emerging epidemic could cause untold hardships and cost millions. Diabetes doesn’t trend to strike the same fear in our hearts as cancer does, aware of the implications which can include amputation, blindness, kindly failure and much more. This is an illness that truly takes away the quality of life and often, it’s easily preventable.
Reasons for obesity
Slow metabolism? Genetic legacy? These are very rarely causes o obesity and overweight. Our changing eating habits are a major contributing factor in the battle of the bulge. Most of us are time-starved and often opt for last food, which isn’t always as nutritious as a home–cooked meal. And restaurant portion sizes are also increasing.
Our sedentary lifestyles are also part of the obesity equation. While a super active person can get away with consuming too many calories from time to time, someone whose worked requires them to sit most of the day will find that any excess calories and up being stored as fat if exercise isn’t part of their regular routine. The environments we’re surrounded by today encourage us to overeat and gain weight. All of the above factors play a role in the global obesity epidemic, as we’ll soon see. |
Changing diet pattern
Our love affair with fast and processed food is growing almost as quickly as our waistlines and with good reason. In the 1950’s, a typical fast food meal was approximately 590 calories, today it average 1550 calories which is almost a full day’s requirement with very few nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and fibre.
While the government recommends no more than 3 to 6 ounces of meat daily, the smallest steak available at the average restaurant is 8 ounces and 24-ounce steaks and 32-ounce drink are becoming the new norm. Even the muffins at coffee shop are super –sized. Maybe that’s because it doesn’t cost vendors much to increase portion size and allows them to up the price. Do I smell the profit factor here?
There is certainly profit to be had. In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food and in the year 2000 that amount went up to $10 billion. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, or new cars. This isn’t just an American thing; in the 1980’s as many as five new fast food restaurant opened everyday – four of these were outside of the U.S. seems our love of fast food is international.
Concerned about the battle of the bulge, some people are wisely avoiding saturated fat but unwisely substituting food with high-sugar content that low –fat muffin could well be loaded with sugar! Low fat, does not always mean low calories – often when manufacture reduce fat, they load up on sugars to improve the taste and the caloric content of the two products ends up very similar.
Let’s look into this a little further as I think it’s an important point. Per gram, fat contains more calories than sugar –but in the end it’s the total number of calories the count.
Table 9-2:caloric content of macronutrients
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Macronutrient
Fat
Protein
Carbohydrate
Alcohol |
Calories per gram
9cal/g
4 cal/g
4 cal/g
7 cal/g |
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In practical terms, what does this mean? The can of cola, and the glass of wine, although they contain no fat, is actually the same in calories as the silver of cheesecake we all try to avoid. |
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While most high-fat foods are high in calories don’t be misleading by high-sugar food as these can pack a powerful calories punch too! A calories is a calorie, regardless of the source, and if you consistently eat more than you need, your body converts that calorie to fat and store it in some convenient warehouse-like your hips or your waistline! Carbonate soft drink are the greatest offenders and the single biggest source of refined sugars in modern diets. The average teenager gets 7 teaspoons of sugar a day from soft drink consumption – that’s 2555 teaspoon of sugar a year or 41’200 calories a year from drink with absolutely no nutritional value.
Government around the world have jumped on the low –fat bandwagon and their campaign to reduce saturated fat in daily diets has had an effect. But not the effect they aimed for. Since the campaign started in north America, calorie intake is up by 400 per day – a major contribution to obesity. People are apparently substituting sugar for fat. This reinforces my point that you have to watch not only what you eat but also how much you eat.
Sedentary lifestyle
An active, healthy person who is not overweight can over-indulge from time to time without paying too high a price for it. That person becomes harder and harder to find in society that encourages us to stay at home and watch television along with its food-inspiring ads. |
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