Obesity and Health: An Unlikely Pair!

Regarding obesity and health, it has been said that the United States is the most over-fed and under-nourished country in the world.

Is that a valid indictment? Well we can collect an awful lot of circumstantial evidence by sitting on a bench in the mall and doing a little people watching.

Certainly we will see that some huge percentage of our population is in fact overweight if not obese.

OK, so what. The real question is to what extent is being overweight or obese a threat to health?

By the way, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) defines obesity as a body mass index equal to or greater than 30.

We intuitively know that carrying around excess weight puts some added stress and strains on our body but specifically what does it do to our long term health?

Is there an ideal weight?

We tend to focus way too much on the scale and obsess over pounds. The real issue is inches, not pounds.

Our weight in pounds can be very misleading in that there is quite a difference between in the weight of equal volumes of fat and muscle. A fact that can cause the Body Mass Index to give very erroneous conclusions on occasion.

Follow the link to BODY MASS INDEX to explore this concept of Body Mass and what it means to us.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

It is difficult and often subjective to try to describe obesity and health in a series of charts and graphs. Nevertheless, there are numerous organizations that track weight and obesity trends across the U.S. and tabulate their findings in data bases available to the public.

The findings are cause for alarm in that most data clearly shows a steady upward trend since the early to mid-eighties. It's not all bleak, however, since the trend does show a leveling off in the last couple of years.

For a series of revealing weight maps and charts, follow the link to TRENDS. It shows the spread of our country's weight problems in a series of easy-to-follow color coded maps.

The statistics show us the trend but they don't reveal the basic causes behind the epidemic of obesity. Read on to explore some possible causes driving the trend.

How did we get so fat?

On the surface, the answer appears to be very straight forward. Food had something to do with it...eating more food, taking in more calories than we burned. If we don't burn the calories we take in, they get stored as fat.

But hang on a minute. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) started keeping records on the percentages of overweight and obese Americans in 1962.

The records show that there wasn't much change in obesity in our population until around 1980. So in 1980 did Americans suddenly start overeating and become couch potatoes. How did obesity and health suddenly become an issue?

Prior to 1980, low cal and low carb diets were in vogue but in 1980, a logical sounding but very erroneous fad took hold...low fat. The belief was that if we eat fat, we got fat. Once the country got hooked on the low fat idea, our fate was sealed. But that's not the whole story, there is an economic side to the obesity and health issue as we will see in a video coming up.

But why didn't the diets of the past work?

The popular low cal, low carb, low fat, and high protein diets of the last fifty years, have been dismal failures. Each has had its time in the sun but have left dieters who tried them disappointed. They usually work fairly quickly in the beginning then a plateau is reached where weight loss stalls.

There is a mechanism in the body that, at some point, will cause a rebound and the dieter will regain all the pounds they lost plus some. It is not unusual for some people to be on zero carb diets or no fat diets and still be gaining weight.

Ouch! If you can do this, you've got problems!

Navigate to the section on DIETS and we will examine the popular diet crazes throughout our history and look at why most of them fell short.

Proper nutrition and diet have a strong partner when it comes to weight control; namely exercise and fitness. It pays large dividends to have a fitness program and stick to it, preferably with a coach.

Low fat, no fat diets aside, our country is fat by design. There is a partnership between big food, fast food and big government in the persona of congress and the USDA, to produce and sell more food.

As always, there are unforseen consequences when government and industry collude. In this case the consequences are an obesity epidemic centered directly on the poor and economically challenged people of the U.S. Obesity and health are not compatible.

Nothing brings this home better than a recent video produced by Aljazeera, of all people. Why couldn't PBS or the USDA produce a video like this and distribute it on the web?

As noted above, the government is the culprit and they are not about to expose something that might impact the profits of the food industries or kill the golden goose that provides all that money brought to congress by big food lobbyists.

Watch the video below and understand where the crisis in obesity and health really comes from and why it will never change unless our poorest people are educated in good nutrition and are provided access to healthy food. It also points out that our country's children are directly in the crosshairs by way of school lunch programs and fast food enticements played out on TV ads. Thank you Ronald McDonald and Chucky Cheese.

We don't have to look any further than the statistics on the rise in diabetes to see that there is a correlation between obesity and health. The increase in obesity and the increase in diabetes are in lockstep.

There is an inverse relationship between obesity and health. This means that the more overweight we become, the more likely we are to develop serious health issues. There are correlations between the obesity epidemic and increases in a number of diseases.

Intuitively we know that as the incidences of these weight related diseases rise, so does the economic cost to the U.S. in terms of actual money out of pocket for treatment, insurance costs and productivity losses.

A link to the section on the NATIONAL COSTS of obesity and health conditions as well as economic costs to the taxpayers are examined in some detail.

Don't despair, there is a diet that works.

The only diet that really works is not really a diet as we traditionally understand diets. It does not involve starvation, food deprivation, counting calories or cutting out all fats and carbohydrates.

It does involve some changes in food selection at the supermarket, some changes in how food is prepared and eaten and some changes in the timing and quantity of food intake.

In short, it involves becoming educated in the interaction between obesity and health and making healthy choices for life in all areas of food. It is known as the Genetic Key dieting program and you can click here for a quick read on it.

The key is in understanding that not all people metabolize food the same way and that genetics playsan extremely important role.

Another index, the Glycemic Index, coupled with a knowledge of what genetic type we are is the ultimate key to success in losing weight and staying at your ideal weight.

It's all about choosing foods that don't elevate blood sugar. The chart shows the effect of a high glycemic food (red line) and a low glycemic food (blue line) on blood sugar over about a 90 minute timespan.

For the success in dieting that you've been looking for, click the link to the role of the GLYCEMIC INDEX in weight control.

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