1 Billion served… TOO MUCH
read time: about three minutes
A couple weeks ago there was a four-day conference on the treatment and prevention of obesity. The shindig was put on by the North American Society for the Study of Obesity (NAASO).
Ponder this:
According to the World Health Organization - worldwide 1 billion people are overweight, 300 million are clinically obese.
Yup, for every four adults in the world who are malnourished, five more are overweight.
Not only are these number astonishingly frightening, but the rate of increase is dizzying. And those numbers and increases are even worse among kids.
The number of overweight kids (6-19 year olds) in the US tripled between 1980 and 2002.
Oh, of course the US racks up the big numbers, but don’t think we own the wide seat accolades alone…
Somoa - 75% in some urban zone are overweight;
China - 20% in some cities are overweight;
Across all of the EU - 45% are overweight.
So what - what’s a “few” extra pounds…
Well in the US according to a University of Pennsylvania researcher, it costs $90.7 billion extra health care dollars… 5.04% of all US health care costs.
Obesity isn’t a self contained issue either because it tends to lead to other conditions such as arthritis, asthma, breast cancer, colon cancer, diabetes and heart disease. These conditions in and of themselves create other complications and on and on it goes.
In fact 90% of folks with type-2 diabetes are either overweight or obese.
And for over 9,500 Americans surveyed, obesity was associated with more chronic health problems and a poorer quality of life than alcohol abuse, smoking or poverty.
A lot of folks may read these kinds of numbers and just be numbed by them or perhaps feel helpless in the face of them.
We’re hounded by “shoulds” in a life that some times has us holding our bladder too long because we don’t have enough time to “go”. True. But part of that is by choice… or lack of thoughful choice. And part is from lack of knowledge.
We’re here for the knowledge part - to dispense often times quick and practical strategies, actions and tidbits that you can absorb and apply in your life.
If it’s not obvious yet, our strongest belief is we need to eat food close to dirt rather than petroleum. i.e., eat the apple from the tree not the “Apple Jacks” highly processed, chemicals added and packaged for a long shelf life.
Read more about the NAASO conference.
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