Fatso Burden

The recent BBC news draws attention ‘Overweight tops World’s hungry’.

There are now more obese people than the hungry ones all over the world. The International Association of Agricultural Economists held a conference recently when a US Professor Barry Popkin revealed the alarming fact that out of 6.5 billion global population, there are more than a billion overweight people in the world and 800 million who are undernourished. Obesity is rapidly spreading and the burden of obesity is shifting from the rich to the poor, not only in urban but in rural areas around the world.

Lifestyles are really important and studies show that in US & Japan, costs of food and transport play a role in the problem. Food prices could be used to manipulate the diets and tilt them towards healthier options.

The obesity boom is a result of the attitude ‘Living to Eat’. More humans are prone to diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular disease due to this attitude. The low calorie, low fiber diets are causing hormonal imbalance that push children to over-eating. Western food manufacturers are found to be creating ‘a toxic environment’ that dooms children to being overweight.

With the anti obesity vaccine and pills developed, the situation yet stands grim as it concerns metabolism. Many people have metabolic syndrome which is characterized by increased abdominal fat, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high cholesterol. India itself has an increased rate of 151% Diabetes. A further alarming is that obesity is on verge of surpassing smoking as #1 cause of preventable death.

The need of the hour is creating a healthy environment. The effects of modernization have led people for car driving and increase in driving shorter distance instead of walking, cycling. There has been increase in modern use of equipments in kitchen like microwave, ready food packs, etc. with reduced manual labour. The technology gadgets taking its place – the computers, television with less recreational activities.

The junk food has entered into lifestyle eating and I feel, Obesity is the most neglected public health crisis of the 21st Century.

Sources to surf:

American Obesity Association

www.obesity.org/  

Kids Health Obesity:

http://www.kidshealth.org/teen/food_fitness/dieting/obesity.html

(All Posts by ilaxi patel: This Health & Fitness Blog is based on personal thoughts and research work. Readers may please Consult your Doctor for your Health Problems)

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