Obesity Bigger Health Crisis than Hunger

DeanoVilla

DeanoVilla

One Bloody Number
Understanding what makes for a healthy diet and lifestyle has never been more important. Shockingly, obesity has now become a greater global health crisis than hunger! Obesity is also the leading cause of disabilities around the world, according to the latest Global Burden of Disease study, published in The Lancet.5 As reported by CNN Health:6

"The report revealed that every country, with the exception of those in sub-Saharan Africa, faces alarming obesity rates -- an increase of 82 percent globally in the past two decades. Middle Eastern countries are more obese than ever, seeing a 100% icrease since 1990. 'The so-called 'Western lifestyle' is being adapted all around the world, and the impacts are all the same,' [co-author Ali] Mokdad said.

... for the first time, noncommunicable diseases like diabetes, stroke and heart disease top the list of leading causes of years spent sick or injured. 'All these problems are tied to obesity,' Mokdad said. 'We're even seeing a large percentage of people suffering back pain now. If we could lower the obesity rates, we'd see the numbers of noncommunicable diseases and pain decrease as well.'


Lifestyle-related chronic diseases are also threatening to bankrupt nations across the globe. Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization has referred to noncommunicable diseases "a slow-motion disaster" that may eventually become financially unsustainable. According to a 2011 report7 by the World Economic Forum and Harvard School of Public Health, noncommunicable diseases is expected to cost more than $30 trillion over the next two decades alone!

There's still cause for hope however. According to a national study8 featured in The New York Times,9 there's been a modest decline in obesity rates among 2- to 4-year-olds from poor families, which is a good sign, however small it might be.
 
Is this in 100% Villa because all the players have come back from pre season as big fat,fatty fat fats ?
 
I think we should play 4 5 1 ...........hang on.Where are we now ? :17:

Joking aside, being obese is not a disease is it ?
I always thought it was either self inflicted or caused by bad parenting.


 
Clubpaver - 21/7/2014 15:16

I think we should play 4 5 1 ...........hang on.Where are we now ? :17:

Joking aside, being obese is not a disease is it ?
I always thought it was either self inflicted or caused by bad parenting.
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The psychiatric school of thought say it is a disease. The reason for that is simple, medically it is recognized that anorexia and bulimia are eating disorders, so therefore obesity is also know as a eating disorder therefore it comes under the same umbrella of anorexia/bulimia and is a disease.

Many people comfort eat when they are unhappy. Others starve themselves or make themselves sick. It becomes a cycle they can't break without support and help. Others turn to drink, drugs, shopping, gambling. Whatever your poison is.

Also the comforting eating and obesity leads to other heath problems which are accepted as diseases, hence, I believe.

Now the psychiatric school of thought, is not my beliefs, it is the general conscientious of there's whether you agree or not
 
Everything is a disease these days.

I wish I could diet and have my brain disease go, I know that for certain.

They legitimise it in my opinion and make them a 'poor me' bunch instead of a 'ffs, get yourself sorted' lot like people used to be.

Society is spoon feeding (literally) people into being victims.

People eat like pigs, eat horrendous food and make themselves ill. An awful lot won't they take help and advice in order to correct the situation (straight from a doctors conversation this) whilst others do and improve their lives dramatically.

Lack of education, conning food industry, horrendous food on offer and yes, food made to be addictive. But people have to take SOME of the responsibility themselves and stop looking for society to fix all ills.
 
There is far too much greed, food and money about than we need. If we shared all the food out equally amongst all humans we wouldnt have anybody going hungry. Neither would have food shortages or the issues we face in farming, food production. Waste is just off the scale, unbelievable and daily by all the major supermarkets in the developed world. Tons of it just thrown away, very sad to see. Especially all the animal products, not only have they had a shit life in cages/force fed, their death is just to be thrown away as well.
 
The amount of food we throw away as a family could feed another family in Africa. It's a crazy society
 
Obesity is also helped along by the low nutrient content in most foods, your body does not crave food, it craves nutrients, so those who eat junk will need to eat more to satisfy the bodies need for nutrients, this leads to over eating, hardly rocket science.

As a customer, you would expect that food stuffs advertised as components of a main meal would be suitable for purpose, that's a basic rule, if you buy a flat screen TV only to find half the components are missing, it would be obvious and you would not accept that.

Poor food is not so obvious to most, because they lack the knowledge to make an informed decision, why isn't such an important subject taught throughout school? Why are companies allowed to peddle products that are not suitable for purpose?

Ignorance is rife! How do you think McDonalds & Co became so big?

 
I read awhile back , & it's pretty obvious, that in days gone by kids from a poorer background were more likely to suffer from malnutrition; due to good wholesome food being expensive. Now kids from a poorer household are more likely to be obese due to food that is high in fat being cheaper. £1 buys a pizza from Iceland where fruit costs considerable more.
 
SKEGGY - 21/7/2014 22:29

I read awhile back , & it's pretty obvious, that in days gone by kids from a poorer background were more likely to suffer from malnutrition; due to good wholesome food being expensive. Now kids from a poorer household are more likely to be obese due to food that is high in fat being cheaper. £1 buys a pizza from Iceland where fruit costs considerable more.
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Alot more of it is laziness Skeggy. Fruit isn't that expensive. The supermarkets are falling over themselves to make us buy stuff so it is even knocked down in price from them.

Use your local green grocer and it is cheaper. i can remember friends asking me how I afforded to bring fruit for my young-uns to school for when they came out. My reply was 'I spend less on fruit per day then you spend on the sweet stuff you have in your hands'

Yes you can get cheap food like pizza's from Iceland or your local supermarket for a pound. You can also get a bag of mince or stewing meat for the same. OK it won't be as good a quality from a freezer shop but it is still better than processed food such as pizza's.

Too much convenience food today. Home economics as we called it isn't mandatory in schools, which it should be. Food is a basic necessity of everyday life and I believe it should be a mandatory subject like English and maths
 
Well you can buy about 5 banana's for a quid, 4 peach's aswell but then the price starts really going up, grapes am like £3 at Asda or close to, fruit is no cheap and the little shops charge more, i even tried the market and the fruit has gone up on there now aswell, fruit is not cheap the amount you need to buy especially, as Skeggy says it's easier to buy a pizza from Iceland for a quid, i buy Asda's own brand cheese and tom for 60p and a cheesy garlic bread for a quid and me and the Mrs share them both as grocery is so expensive thesedays, just buying a few essentials costs a fortune.
 
Banana's and peaches then on the menu. Leave the stuff alone that's more expensive. Our greengrocer has always been cheaper than our supermarket, however it doesn't last so well. Need to eat within 2 days, which is O.K if you a growing family as it wont last 5 minutes. It didn't with mine.

I do agree though the cost of groceries is ridiculous, even just for the basics
 
david-avfc - 21/7/2014 23:23

Obese people have a choice, those who are dying of starvation don't.
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As previously stated, some of those suffering from obesity are due to the bodies demand for food, the mistake is assuming McD, other fast food and many processed foods are actually worthy of the title food, you are not supplying the nutrients required by the body so are continuously hungry, everything you eat is full of sugar which is highly addictive, so you eat more rubbish because you know no different.

From a position of ignorance fuelled by media offers of cheap bargains from Iceland and how this mega bucket of shit is a bargain, while pretty young slim things eat McD's because it's cool, where's the choice?

As for those starving, if there is no edible vegetation, no fish or game to hunt, it really is a sign that you need to move!


 
david-avfc - 22/7/2014 00:23

Obese people have a choice, those who are dying of starvation don't.
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I used to make statements like that when I was young, arrogant and lacking in life experience. Since then I have developed some bad habits that have changed my situation and been afflicted by health matters that greatly influence my situation.

To cut a long story short, in my early 20s I developed asthma and my general situation regarding allergies has deteriorated. This has made exercising more of a challenge than it used to be. In addition, I became a father supporting a family on a relatively low income (trust me, low income in the UK is not the same as low income in Norway as in Norway everything other than the countryside costs money and pretty much everything is expensive even compared to the high wage levels here), this lead to me spending a lot of time at home, inevitably in front of the TV or computer screen - I didn't have the heart to leave my wife at home looking after our twin babies (now they are teenagers so no problem). Add this to a string of sedentary jobs and you will see how I became, through a mixture of health matters, bad choices and lifestyle situations forced on me, pretty unfit.

One other thing that I didn't appreciate as a younger man is just how bloody difficult things are in terms of regaining fitness as you get older, everything seems to take more effort, recovery and healing times are longer. Had someone tried to tell me the difference between 32 and 42 (my current age) before I experienced it I would not have believed them. Even people who have maintained good fitness all their lives will attest to the fact that when you start to approach middle age your body no longer responds how it used to. I remember, in my mid 20s, I decided that I was not in good shape and was carrying a bit too much weight ( I was not exactly fat but wanted to be slimmer and fitter) - it took me about a month to build up my fitness to a pretty good level - now it takes a lot more.

So from your viewpoint, being overweight is a choice but from mine it's a trap that I fell into and am struggling to escape. I have the knowledge but when you feel pain, sickness and general discomfort, combined with having difficulties breathing (unfitness combined with asthma) then it's not always easy to motivate yourself to do what you know needs to be done.

 
I'm kind of the counter argument to that. It is hard, at any age, but it can be done.

It is down, exactly to that word you use at the end, motivation.

It is pretty much down to us what we eat. That is the start point.
 
Yes VOTN, though your story is different to mine, and I needed to put weight on, as I was underweight, mobility issues and so on meant I comfort ate as well as eat normal meals so I get that. I am not obese I am overweight which I am now finally tackling.

Like with anything you have to get to a place where you have had enough and want to change your lifestyle. Until then people will stay in their misery because it is a comfort zone and it is too uncomfortable for them to change.

I can understand why alot of you come from the places you do, re these things. However having had to deal with my own mental health issues which has taken years of specialized therapy to do (8 years to sort, in all) I have a better empathy with people who society dislikes.

I am not saying, I condone them. I am saying I get it and why they are like they are. I do get irritated by people who won't help themselves though, like I did. I do accept that often people don't realise there is a problem as I too know that 1. I don't like the fact that when they realise there is problems they don't deal.

However 1 of the realisations I have had in my long road of recovery and therapy is I can do nothing about what other people do. When I put my expectations of others above my peace of mind, then it is me that is hurting so I try not to do it. Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. That doesn't mean I stay a victim. God no, never, it means I deal with me and leave others to get on with it. Yes I have my views, we all do, however what someone else does with their life, is none of my business. If it is affecting me sure I say, however I can't change others, only myself.

I have had to learn that my part in anything is how I react even if the other person is clearly in the wrong. I have to change and deal differently.
 
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