The Power of Metabolism - Overweight & Obesity

Sections

Chapter: A Giant Problem

Overweight and Obesity - Epidemics

Overweight and obesity have grown to epidemic proportions. At least that's how the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considers it.

It is estimated that 65.2% of the population is overweight and 24.7% (1 in 4 people) are already obese. The term obesity does not mean the same as overweight. Obesity means being at least 20% above the normal weight for our height. All obese people are overweight, but not all overweight people are obese.

The truth is that these population statistics are getting worse and worse. For example, see this graph:

Even childhood obesity has been steadily increasing for decades and so has childhood diabetes. It has been shown that there is a direct relationship between overweight and diabetes. It is estimated that more than 85% of diabetics are overweight. Any diabetic who manages to lose weight will experience substantial improvement in their diabetic condition.

The American Cancer Society has published studies showing a much higher incidence of cancer in people who are overweight. To name a few examples, overweight women experience a 112% higher incidence of breast cancer. Overweight men experience a 352% higher incidence of liver cancer (source: NAASO, The Obesity Society, Study on Obesity). In other words, being overweight is a real health risk.

In short, we could safely say that the battle against obesity is being lost at the national level. More and more people are becoming obese. As obesity is linked to the conditions of high blood pressure, high triglycerides, high cholesterol and diabetes, statistics also reflect annual increases in these conditions. Sales of drugs for these conditions are a good indicator of the magnitude of the problem. In the last 10 years, pharmaceutical companies have broken their own record for sales of drugs associated with these conditions. It's unfortunate to say, but obese and sick people are good business for the drug companies.

All this is happening while our food stores are increasingly stocked with sugar free,fat free,low fatandlow caloriefoods. A curious fact is that the statistical studies of the federal government
as the NHANES(National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) reflect that we currently consume about 19% less fat than 40 years ago and yet we are 47% more overweight than at that time.

When you understand how the body creates fat you will realize that our population is not more overweight than before because we eat more fat than before. There are other reasons that are increasing the proportion of fat in our bodies and will be discussed under the topic of How fat is created in the body. These are facts that anyone who wants to avoid or beat overweight and obesity should know.

Finally, we must see that the future of our youth is increasingly uncertain due to the epidemic of overweight and obesity. Already hundreds of thousands of children need to use prescription drugs to control their high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. We are raising a new generation of weak, fat, flabby bodies that only have energy to play electronic games. We are setting them a very bad example of what they should be learning about eating and taking care of their bodies. Even the food in school cafeterias is disastrous with portions of pizza,hot dogsand other foods that more than food could be called food deserts.

There is talk that obesity has a certain hereditary factor. I agree, to a certain extent. I agree that there is a strong hereditary factor, but this hereditary factor has nothing to do with our genes or chromosomes. It has to do with the fact that bad habits are inherited from parents to children. A family with bad habits begets and raises children with bad habits. All of the hundreds of overweight children I have worked with lived in homes where unhealthy eating and lifestyle were obvious causes of the child's obesity.

Clearly, none of us has the power to change the whole of society. However, each of us does have the power to improve the knowledge and responsibility with which our loved ones eat. If each of us takes responsibility for improving our own immediate family and if everyone did the same, in a very short time we would have improved the whole of society. What is certain is that if we do nothing about it, not even with our loved ones, we will have been complicit in creating poor states of health for our loved ones and their future generations.