Obesity
Keywords:
Informed
Better life
What to do
Apr 16, 2024
Not their fault.
Lack of motivation is not a cause of obesity.
There is no denying that people get less physical activity, but people are also health-conscious and trying to eat healthier food. Yet, they are still obese.
Our system is the culprit as it imposes an unhealthy food and lifestyle in a stressful environment.
Obesity is a public health disaster.
There is no denying that people get less physical activity, but people are also health-conscious and trying to eat healthier food. Yet, they are still obese.
Obsesity is a disability. It lowers the quality of our life, and shortens lifespan as well.
Obsesity is not just a physical disability but a mental disability. It lowers power of concentration and output as people are frequently tired.
Lack of motivation is not a cause of obesity. Humans suddenly have not become lazier over generations.
Our
system is the culprit as it imposes unhealthy food and lifestyle in a stressful environment.
Stated another way, obesity is the cost we pay to sustain this toxic system.
Less nutrition in food
Research shows that
food is 5-40% less nutritious compared to 25 years ago.
This has been shown to be due to newer faster growing varieties, and getting more yield from the same land which depletes the soil.
"1.) early studies of fertilization found inverse relationships between crop yield and mineral concentrations—the widely cited 'dilution effect;
2.) three recent studies of historical food composition data found apparent median declines of 5% to 40% or more in some minerals in groups of vegetables and perhaps fruits; one study also evaluated vitamins and protein with similar results; and
3.) recent side-by-side plantings of low- and high-yield cultivars of broccoli and grains found consistently negative correlations between yield and concentrations of minerals and protein, a newly recognized genetic dilution effect."
The same quantity of food has lower nutrition today. So
people tend to eat more bulk to get the same or less nutrition.
Farmers market and co-operatives are usually just as bad as they sell you the same food as they sell to supermarkets. They also grow food in soil which is depleted of nutrition.
Eat the same food that your grandparents did. Avoid modern low-fat food. Avoid Canola or vegetable or sunflower oil. The Indian '
ghee' is the healthiest fat you can use for cooking. It has been in use for at least 3000 years. A good rule of thumb is that if your grandparents didn't eat it, you should not eat it.
If you live among nature, start your kitchen or community garden to grow nutritious crops.
The agriculture system we depend on for food prioritizes profit(yield per hectare) rather than quality of food and health of people.
Profits for corporations go up; farmers income and our health goes down; soil is depleted; ground water exhausted. Government orchestrates this for the benefit of corporations with their monopoly of violence.
Portion size
Food portions today are measured for a 5ft 1in sedentary woman. They are not adequate for 5ft 10in man doing some physical activity or intellectual work. Brain is the largest consumer of energy, and intellectual work consumes a lot of energy.
The portions people eat are too small.
Small portion sizes is a particular problem if you eat out. The size of a burger, or a sandwich, is not enough for an average person. Food is also fluffed up with lettuce. The bread is specially developed with air and sugar in it. There is a well-known rule of thumb that you can determine the quality of salad and food by the amount of lettuce in it. The more the lettuce, the lower the overall quality of food. Lettuce and fluffed up bread make the small portions look big.
The portion size just isn't enough to provide adequate nutrition or calories for an average person. This is even more acute for vegetarian food where a vegetarian portion has one or two spoonfuls of food, and the rest is water with corn starch thickener.
The result is that
people will add sugar-laden sauce, or dessert or a sugary drink or milkshake or a snack to their meal. This adds empty sugary calories to your diet contributing to obesity.
Gyms not useful
Spending an hour at the gym is not as effective as people expect it to be.
An hour at the gym cannot compensate for insufficient nutrition, small portions, sugary drinks, and a sedentary lifestyle for rest of the day.
Gyms are over-commercialized and fad-driven. Those who rely on gym for fitness also tend to adopt bad fads that don't bring results and demoralize people after some time. No wonder gyms have high turnover and broken health resolutions.
Sleep
Ensure adequate quality sleep and afternoon nap if it works for you. Ensure you get quality sleep without noise and interruptions.
Growth hormone kicks in around 11pm. Be in deep sleep by then.
Stress, noise, toxicity, anxiety, and complexity
Humans evolved to live in an environment where noise and anxiety fired stress hormones(adrenaline). Constant stress hormones lead to fat accumulation to prepare for stressful and hard times.
Modern life surrounds us with noise. There is traffic noise. Cities rumble all day. Home appliances make unnecessary noise, whirr and beep constantly. All this adds to stress.
Micro-aggressions at toxic work places are another source of stress leading to fat accumulation.
Unnecessary complexity of modern life gives us anxiety. Do you need dozen credit cards, multiple subscriptions, 10 shoes, house full of latest e-toys, a 'vibrant' social life driven by FOMO(Fear of Missing Out)?
Minimize stress, noise, toxicity, anxiety, and complexity in your life.
Use noise cancellation earphones or ear defenders when working.
"
The people who are most likely to be an unhealthy weight are those who have a high genetic risk of developing obesity and whose lives are also shaped by work, school and social environments that promote overeating and inactivity," it says.
"People who live in deprived areas often experience high levels of stress, including major life challenges and trauma, often their neighbourhoods offer few opportunities and incentives for physical activity and options for accessing affordable healthy food are limited" -
source.
Immigrants, minorities, repressed people, people with low socio-economic status, long commuters, people with bad bosses and bad co-workers - all suffer from high stress, and so higher likelihood of obesity.
Financialization of Food
We eat foods that are foreign to us. Financialization of food and agriculture imposes a single monoclonal agriculture system usually based around crops whose genes, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides are patented by large corporations. E.g. wheat, corn, rice.
These 'commodities' can be traded on stock exchange and financialized to generate exponential profits that have no relation to the underlying asset.
Native foods in Punjab are forgotten and replaced with foreign food grains like Durum wheat and Rice.
Varities of native american corn replaced by single strain.
Food that is native, natural, cheaper, and healthier is not profitable to large corporations and not supported by buyers(government and corporations).
Cities unsuitable for walking
Our ancestors walked to most places. But cities today are unsuitable for walking. Can you imagine walking in most cities with traffic noise, rumble, and dust.
Children cannot play outside or in parks as noise and pollution from traffic gives them stress, headache, and makes them deaf.
Cities are not designed for people walking, cycling or playing. Cities are designed for cars.
Studies have shown that living in polluted cities lowers IQ of children as well. "
Studies show that breathing polluted air can impair memory and reasoning, reduce academic performance, and even lower intelligence".
Other and unknown factors
Chemicals and Microplastics: Food contains unknown number of chemicals and microplastics whose effect is not known.
"
people are exposed to more chemicals that might be weight-gain inducing. Pesticides, flame retardants, and the substances in food packaging might all be altering our hormonal processes and tweaking the way our bodies put on and maintain weight".
Change in gut bacteria: "
microbiomes of Americans might have somehow changed between the 1980s and now. It’s well known that some types of gut bacteria make a person more prone to weight gain and obesity. Americans are eating more meat than they were a few decades ago, and many animal products are treated with hormones and antibiotics in order to promote growth. All that meat might be changing gut bacteria in ways that are subtle, at first, but add up over time. Kuk believes that the proliferation of artificial sweeteners could also be playing a role".
Filtered or bottled water essential in third world removes mineral nutrients from water.
Lack of willpower is NOT a cause of obesity. "
the body weight of Americans today is influenced by factors beyond their control".
Avoid fads
Intermittent Fasting is a new fad that involves eating food only for a few hours a day. E.g. eat all meals within 8 or 10 hours, and do not eat anything(except water) for the rest 16-14 hours.
The
claim here is that avoiding any food or drink(except water) for long period allows blood sugar to drop. The body then burns fat releasing lot of energy.
Some people take it to the extreme and fast for 12-15 hours a day, and eat 2 meals a day with no snacks or sugar.
The hypothesis here is that modern life surrounds us with high calorie food. Eating at regular intervals does not allow blood sugar to drop. So fat is never burned. Staying active and intermittent fasting allows blood sugar to drop and burn fat.
Fads like Intermittent Fasting are potentially dangerous. "
8-hour time-restricted eating linked to a 91% higher risk of cardiovascular death".
Avoid fads like Intermittent Fasting.
* * *
Stay physically active throughout the day; eat adequate size portions of food; grow your own food if possible as there are no commercial sources of nutritious food; and avoid unnecessary stress, noise, toxicity, complexity, and anxiety in your life.
Our
system is the culprit as it imposes unhealthy food and lifestyle in a stressful environment.
The system benefits the large corporations who control and financialize our food supply. Farmers income, soil quality, and our health goes down. This is orchestrated by the government at the point of a gun.
Obesity is the cost we pay to sustain the end-state of our toxic, dying, depreciating system.
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