Obesity is increasing across the developed world, in every age group, especially young people. Jamie Oliver's recent brave televised attempts to change the eating habits of school children have highlighted a national malaise that undermines most efforts to create healthy change. We eat the wrong foods for the wrong reasons, often without realising what we are doing. There are explanations for this, as we shall see, but the fact is that sugar addiction, in one form or another is a root cause of obesity.
Obesity is not a cosmetic issue, it is a killer. Obesity leads to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and guilt. Physical problems associated with excess weight include arthritis, low back pain, chest wall and diaphragm restrictions, incontinence, sleep aponea and cellulite. All of these conditions create pain, difficulty in walking, shortness of breath, fatigue, lethargy and so on, leading to less physical activity, more weight gain and the onset of a vicious cycle. Any society that sees itself and its young people become unhealthy in this way, when there is sufficient wealth and knowledge to avoid such problems, should do something about it.
A common misconception is that obesity is purely the result of doing too little. It's true that most people, including the young, exercise less and eat more than ever before, and are correspondingly heavier and less fit. However, confusion exists over the function and benefits of exercise. There are actually no clear links between exercise and leanness, and only the most persistent marathon runners burn off our average weekly calorie intake. Exercise is good because it keeps us strong and fit, strengthens our heart and helps us to function properly, not because it makes us slim. Trying to become lean through physical activity is much less effective than eating properly and in the correct amount. Exercise, and hard physical labour make us hungrier and we eat accordingly. This is a perfectly natural phenomenon, designed by nature to maintain homeostasis, or stability.
Lean people consume calories as fuel more effectively than fat people, who are more efficient at converting fuel to fat stores. No amount of sustained gut-busting exercise will prevent this happening, because biology cannot be fooled. There is evidence that our bodies have a set point', or genetically programmed weight range that we return to regardless of food consumption or exercise. Regular aerobic exercise seems to lower the set point as long as it is maintained, and diets high in fats and sugars seem to raise the set point.
To be sure, exercise helps to stoke up the digestive fires that can lead to improved fitness, greater muscle mass and enhanced well-being, but it needs to be combined with a healthy diet. Which raises that other thorny issue, the dieting cycle, with which we are all too familiar, a process that inevitably leads to renewed weight gain and an actual increase in body fat, following reduced intake of food. Dieting also leads to obsessions and food cravings, and secret impulse eating. Dieters also become more anxious, have difficulty concentrating and become less sociable. Nevertheless, there is a problem with what we eat and with how we use food.
Sugar content has increased dramatically in western diets and is the main issue behind obesity problem. Boys and girls in this country get 16-17% of their daily calories from non-nutritional processed sugars, when the maximum recommended by experts, to avoid diet-related diseases, is 10%. By the age of seven children are eating an average of half a kilo of sugary foods a day. By the age of 15 boys typically have a habit of nearly 80lbs per year, the equivalent of 1,000 cans of cola or 11,800 sugar cubes. Millions of adults are not far behind. Sugars, in the form of easily digestible simple carbohydrates, processed foods, with their high sugar and fat content and in the many disguised forms that the food industry use to "enhance" flavour, do the real damage as far as fat storage is concerned. Why? Because sugars make our bodies secrete insulin and this leads to the creation and storage of fat. That is the simple fact behind the obesity epidemic.
Why do we go for sweet things? Because our body's reaction to chronic stress is to engage in pleasure-seeking behaviours, which include eating high-energy foods. From an evolutionary point of view this makes sense, since in hostile environments, when under threat, these foods would provide the fuel necessary to fight and survive. However, in the developed world, chronic stress levels arising from frustrations, work and relationships issues, financial problems etc are not easily relieved through action. The biologically induced response to eat energy-rich, high sugar content foods, though fine in the short term, is the very thing that leads to weight gain.
Hunching over a computer and stewing over the long terms effects of ones personal demons, or the latest ranting of the office bully, produces the same stress levels and the same urge to seek high energy foods as a close encounter with a bomb or a lion, but over weeks and months, the recourse to energy rich comfort foods as a release from stress becomes addictive. The same urge to eat comes when we are bored, and we default to the "safeness" of comfort food. Here lies the problem: sweet tastes bring comfort nobody who is stressed reaches out for a salad. We are genetically programmed to go for safe, sweet tastes because there are no sweet and poisonous substances in nature. Amniotic fluid and mother's milk are sweet, and sweet tastes act as analgesics, reducing the sensation of pain in children. As children, we have a heightened taste for sweetness during periods of growth. An appreciation of sweet tastes is natural to us, whereas bitter tastes are something we grow to like.
This natural appreciation of sweet tastes is being taken advantage of by a food industry that breeds and grows ever sweeter fruits and other crops, increasing the sugar content of all processed and packaged foods, including baby foods. Babies are hooked on sweetness through exposure to refined sugars within follow-on products that now contain, in some cases 60% more sugar than regular milk. Bottle fed babies consume 30,000 more calories than breast fed ones in their first eight months. Their palates are being surreptitiously educated to prefer excessive levels of sweetness.
Sugar is a cheap and easy alternative to fat for adding bulk to food. When you see the words "low fat" you can be fairly sure that sugar content will have increased. Most bitter tastes in food and drink are being phased out, bred out or reduced, and sugar content is increased in everything from beer to burgers. Even pickles are high in sugar content. Why is this a problem? Because refined and processed sugars and carbohydrates convert very quickly to blood sugar, giving a rapid burst of energy and a rise in insulin production, then a sudden dip in energy and a need for more sugar. From this comes excess insulin production leading to greater fat storage. Natural whole foods metabolise slowly and release energy over a long period. Slowly digestible complex carbs do not produce insulin "spikes". Exposure to sugar also increased the desire for it. Sugar and sweet tastes are addictive and there is evidence to indicate that withdrawal from sugar consumption produces similar effects to withdrawal from nicotine or morphine.
Obesity is best dealt with through a change of mind, and a change of attitude towards food, not from the exercise of will power. It is dealt with by paying heed to our body's response to stresses that we may not be acknowledging, and by recognizing the addictive qualities of sugar and energy rich foods. In our 21st century existence, we cannot run off the calories contained in energy rich food, and we must be conscious of our instinct to eat sweet comforting food. When we feel that urge, the question should be what am I frightened of, what is causing me pain, what is creating stress in my life.
This is where the constructive, life-changing work lies. We recover from short periods of stress, such as traffic incidents relatively easily. However, chronic stress, over weeks and months, is a potential killer that should be dealt with. Obesity is a symptom of unhealthy eating, directed by a deeper urge. We should not think that short-term fixes to the symptoms will create lasting benefits, because dieting and rapid weight loss too soon becomes creeping weight gain. Success lies in dealing with the behavioral patterns, negative thinking and reactions to stress that underlie the urge to seek comfort, and that approach to dealing with the self underpins.
Linda has a B.A in Communication and Psychology and has studied Integrative Coaching with the Debbie Ford Institute in San Diego, California. She is a Dr Bach mentor and practitioner, an Ayurvedic Trainer and Consultant and an Emotional Therapy Practitioner (EFT). She has a small clinic in Cheshire and offers Integrative Psychotherapy and Ayurvedic Consulations.
She encourages people to examine themselves and the pains and rigours of their lives, to develop clarity with regard to their daily patterns of nutrition and complimentary activities and from there to develop an in-depth understanding of their health, happiness and wellbeing. Her book The Creating Game offers 24 principles to creating your life with purpose and direction read more about it on the website.
This article was written in collaboration with her business partner Jim Whitham who is a writer and Educationalist. The Creating Game has been adapted and revised by Jim for Young People, schools. college and institutions.
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