Understanding The Problems of Being Overweight

I think we’ve all heard the stories about the health problems caused by being overweight. By this time it goes in one ear and out the other. It’s only the over 55 group of people that feel the effects of overweight. They see it everyday in their own home and see it with their friends. At one time it was only seniors that felt these effects and for the most part, It was chalked up to aging. In fact, the effects of overweight have nothing to do with aging. Well, what I mean is that you can feel the effects of overweight even at the age of 40 or even 30. It’s not your age that causes the health problems, it’s the extra weight.

Being overweight has grown to epidemic levels in several parts of the world. Some of this overweight population can be blamed on the wealth effect or the fact that people in “Emerging Countries” have more money today and their spending more on food. Eating better, eating more is a sign of prosperity in some countries. But in countries like the U.S., some of the overweight population can be written off as the “Wealth Effect”, but most of the problem with overweight is in the low-income population.

Thirty-seven percent of all overweight people can blame it on heredity, that’s what the experts are saying, but I’m skeptical, I think that number is too high. Yes, heredity does play a part, but I believe that if your parents are overweight chances are you may have grown up eating the foods that caused your parents to be overweight, and you might have packed on extra pounds just from eating their diet. So this can be something you might be able to blame your parents for. In defense of your parents, I want to say that they are a product of their parents and so forth and so on. During the 19th century most all families were farming and the lucky ones were also raising livestock. It’s a hard life, but the food was good if you could harvest a crop.

What I’m getting at is that eating habits get passed down from generation to generation and some households don’t eat much different then people did 100 years ago. The rest of us though, living in the city, and there’s a lot more then in your grandparents day, who don’t live that farming lifestyle. We aren’t as active as our grandparents were, but our eating habits haven’t changed much.

There lies the problem, very little of the population lives on the farm. We don’t grow our own food, we don’t raise the livestock we eat or eat the eggs from our chickens, we have to buy everything. “So what’s so bad about that”, you might ask. Sixty years ago there was nothing wrong with that, but today we have a very small percentage of farmers, less then 10% of our population. Most of them don’t grow food that you buy in the grocery store, those days are gone. They grow cash crops like soy beans and corn that is used for cattle feed and ethanol for gasoline.

Of course some farmers have started to grow “Organic Foods”. This is a new industry and still very pricey, and only bought by the people how will pay the high prices. Most of the food that you see in the stores is produced by big corportations. They use pesticides, fertilizers and hormones to stimulate faster growth, an that’s fine for their bottom line, but those chemical are causing a lot of health problems. In their defense, they tell the government that the amount of chemicals is so small it can’t possibly hurt you. But some of these same chemicals are appearing in all our foods, so it’s easy to receive amounts threw out the day that can harm you. The use of salt and sugar in almost everything you buy also causes health problems. You can read labels all morning at the grocery store and you probably will never see the words “salt or sugar” on a label, because companies use chemical substitutes. You can find the word “sodium”, that’s like salt and will affect your blood pressure and you can find the word “calories” , a high calorie count means they have a sugar substitute in the food. Sugar substitutes are worse then sugar for your blood pressure.

We are a more educated population today and we know we shouldn’t be eating foods that can cause health problems, but most of us are in denial. Nothing will happen to me, I only eat “ blank, blank” a couple times a week. The problem is that you can get use to making bad choices. And you’ll continue to make bad choices and soon the bad choices out weigh the good choices. It the bad choices you make that add body fat and the extra body fat is what ages your body. A friend of mind is the same age as me, we were born the same month. He the same height as I am but he weighs 50 pounds more. O.K., some might say that I’m thin and some might say I could gain a couple of pounds, but my Doctor thinks like me, “ When your thinner, your heart doesn’t have to do as much work”. My friend looks 10 years older than me and has multiple health problems, we’re both 69. I work out almost everyday and all my vitals are good. I don’t take any medications. I don’t talk to my friend about his health, I don’t want to depress him.

The thing is my friend is not low-income and him and his wife could afford to shop at any grocery store or eat at any restaurant. Like most people they are “creatures of habit” and even know they know better, their not going to change.

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There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.