Obesity - side effect of Lifestyle changes and Culture mix
Obesity. A dreaded word. A condition which is feared by people all over the world and affecting more than one third of the US population. Obesity kills more people in the US than people who die of Car accidents and Tobacco usage. Everyone is taking action on controlling the epidemic (ok its not an epidemic).
Over the last century a lot has changed and people have seen some of the major changes in lifestyle and food consumption. In the 50's when food was limited and people could barely make ends meet, obesity did not exist but for those in the domain of kings. People who could afford food and do nothing but administer the masses were more obese. You could say a person was rich by how fat he looks. It was also meant to tag a person as well off. Even today, in some of the developing countries like parts of africa and india, people who are fat are considered healthy and well off. Unfortunately this is not true.
the late 1970's saw the food revolution. there were chemicals developed to increase food yield. Rice which was grown in 10 hectares could now be grown in 1 hectare. Pesticides and chemicals became more common. Fertilizers were evolving in composition and ability. Food was available to the masses. People started to choose foods. the cuisine culture had changed. We started consuming refined oil, refined sugar, refined flour, all because it was excellent in taste. Nutritional values were of no concern anymore.
Our culture has started relishing food more than ever before. Today we eat Pizzas and burgers high in fat and tastes exotic. The best foods contain some of the worst ingredients though, specially when consumed in abundance. Take for instance the burgers. The patty is rich in calorie and fat. the Cheese is high in protein. the salt content is high in sodium and overall you have one big killer.
A person who ate McDonalds burger every day for 60 days continuously increased up to 60 pounds of weight. Does that strike a bell? These foods do taste good. they make us want more of it and we do eat a lot. The restaurants and joints add ingredients which make us love the food we eat, but unfortunately we are also paying a huge bill (pun intended) in terms of health.
Correction from the grass root level should be our first step. Sometimes its better off to go back to our past, to what our ancestors did and analyze what they had done then. A normal meal would be bread and soup. very rarely would there be any meat on the table. Dairy was limited and work was hard. But then they lived an 80 and in good health. We don't have to take it to that extreme but could surely do a lot of great work if we could just manage a decent natural diet , cutting away with the fat and junk.
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