Obesity Epidemic is Bad News for Economic Recovery

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

You think this is harsh and OTT? Dr Donal O’Shea, a famed Irish endocrinologist and Director of the Weight Management Clinic at St Columcille’s Hospital in Loughlinstown, said in a conference in Dublin last week that

“pouring funding into cardiology, cancer and dementia without tackling the obesity epidemic that is fueling these conditions would be a disaster.”

His take on obesity (about 24 minutes long, scroll down to the tenth video) is a sober approach to combating it. “Worldwide, obesity is the driver of a range life-threatening “lifestyles” diseases”, he notes. The British Medical Journal puts it bluntly: “The driving force for the increasing prevalence of obesity in populations is the increasingly obesogenic environment rather than any pathology in individuals”.

If you’re looking for the visible signs of a wide scale system failure all you have to do is walk down the street in any city in the world and see first hand the crisis that is playing out in the bodies of millions of people. It’s a slow moving disaster that has the potential to sink health systems worldwide and seriously hamper economic recovery. For instance here in Ireland, 24% of the population is obese, in line with the rampant epidemic in the US and it is already straining government coffers to the limit. I read the other day in a British magazine, can’t remember which one, but its sheer logic jumped off the page and roughly it is as such:

“In common with all other species, humans instinctively conserve energy, using just as much as we need to feed and breed. Our physiology was simply never designed to cope with having unlimited access to high-energy fats and sugars that today are embedded in the foods that pervades our lives.”

I have written about this in the past and got trolled by some irate posters who trotted out a number of reasons why I shouldn’t point fingers. I’m not. Yes, I get that some people may be overweight due to illness, or suffer from hypothyroidism, pituitary tumor, endocrine abnormalities or other. Weight is often something a person cannot help any more than being female, short, or diabetic. People are often too quick to condemn and judge anyone who is overweight as being lazy and greedy, unable to control their eating. Other factors are transportation or lack of, proximity of convenience stores, cooking time scarcity due to the fact that some people have to hold two or three jobs to make ends meet and a host of others. But obesity is a serious disease which is readily treatable with exercise, a balanced diet and drugs where necessary.

Obesity is the medical term used to describe the state of being overweight to the point where it is harmful to your health. An obese adult is three times more likely to develop diabetes, compared to a person who remains within a healthy weight range. The news is even worse for children and adolescents.

The calorie intake of most people today is broadly the same as 20 years ago, but activity levels have dropped off. The way in which society has changed means that everything is now done for us. We don’t even have to roll down our car windows anymore, we simply press a button. When we enter a building, we rarely have to use stairs because of lifts. While visiting New York I’ve seen a young couple entering a taxicab for a 200 meter ride! And I might add that if obesity is the disease then television is its principal vector. We all know the term “couch potato”.

The nature of food is different today too. Convenience undoubtedly plays a huge role in people’s choice, as indicated by the ever-expanding range of ‘ready meals’ now available, as well as the plethora of fast-food restaurants which continue to pop up nearby.

In dealing with this issue, balance is the key. We need a balanced diet, but the messages we receive about food also need to be balanced. I would like to see food and advertising companies endorsing healthier foods, and to make healthier foods attractive to young people. Take high-fructose corn syrup for example. It’s a cheaply made agricultural byproduct that is ubiquitous in soft drinks and used widely as a sweetener in processed foods. The problem lies with the fact that unlike glucose, which sends a signal to the brain that your stomach is full, calorie-soaked fructose actually leave people feeling hungrier. These products are marketed shamelessly to kids via television shows ad breaks.

When it comes to the issue of obesity and children, ultimately, responsibility lies at home. This message needs to come through school (which should stop selling soft drinks and sugary snacks in their vending machines) as well but it must be delivered at home first and foremost. There needs to be a campaign for parents to make them aware of this issue. Another way to combat this avalanche of fatty products is to tax junk food the same way that governments tax cigarettes and alcohol. The tax revenues could be utilized to promote healthier foods, and make them affordable to all.

According to Dr O’Shea,

“there is much concern over the number of overweight and obese young patients attending not only diabetes clinics, but general medical clinics too. A recent study in the UK found that children as young as three were presenting with obesity. The strain that this puts on the pancreas…it simply would not be able to cope. This is a completely new phenomenon which has only been seen in the last 10 to 15 years”.

The World Health Organisation defines obesity as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more. A person’s BMI is calculated based on their weight and height. A person with a BMI of under 25 is considered normal and the risk of developing conditions such as diabetes is minimum. A BMI of 25 – 30 is considered overweight and the risk to health is increased. Calculate you BMI here.