CHAPTER SEVEN: The Path to Better Health and a Longer Life
“If you want to know if your brain is flabby, feel your legs.”
- Bruce Barton
Obesity
Consuming too many calories combined with a sedentary lifestyle that burns too
few calories leads to obesity. This is because the obese store the
unburned calories in the body as fat. An obese person is not simply overweight.
According to some definitions, an obese person is an individual with a higher
percentage of body fat compared to lean tissue. Obesity is a chronic,
debilitating, degenerative disease that often leads to other chronic,
debilitating degenerative diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and
stroke. An obese person is a malnourished person.
“I have chosen to be happy because it
is good for my health.”
- Voltaire
Annually, these medical conditions
alone account for more than 70% of all deaths in the United States.
Avoiding the dangers of obesity requires a lifelong commitment to maintaining a
healthy body. This is something that only people who make the correct
lifestyle choices can do. Yet, in spite of the growing public awareness
of the dangers of obesity, too many Americans are choosing to live unhealthy
lifestyles, becoming obese, and dying far sooner than they should.
“Physical fitness is not only one of
the most important keys to a healthy body; it is the basis of dynamic and
creative intellectual activity.”
- John F. Kennedy
In the early 1960's, when President John F Kennedy began promoting the benefits
of exercise to the American people, less than a quarter of the nation’s
population was considered obese. In the early 1990's, when actor and body
builder Arnold Schwarzenegger headed the President’s Council on Physical
Fitness, more than one third of the population was obese.
At the 1998 annual meeting of the American Dietetic Association in Kansas City,
the delegates declared Americans are the fattest people on Earth. They
claim that 55% of American adults are now heavier than is healthy. This
is partly due to the fact that Americans snack more and eat larger meals and
lead a softer lifestyle than anyone else on Earth. Our “American good
life” is a combination of a slothful lifestyle and large amounts of “fast,”
fatty food that is often ingested while sitting on a couch, while watching
television.
“Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness.”
- Joseph Pilates
In spite of the growing awareness of the dangers of obesity, the percentage of
the United States adult population classified as either overweight or obese is
now 61 percent. This finding is part of the 1999 National Health and
Nutrition Examination Survey created by the Atlanta Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. American travelers returning from Europe have reported
that there are many more overweight people in the United States than they saw
in any European country. European visitors to the United States who adopt
the American lifestyle often return to their native countries with significant
weight gains. On the surface, this might be mainly due to Americans
eating large meals both at home and when dining out, along with spending less
time engaged in physical activity. Right now, the average American male
adult weighs 25 pounds more than men of his great grandfathers’
generation. “We’re the fattest we’ve ever been” said Sachiko Tokunaga de
St. Jeor, director of the nutrition research and education program at the
University of Nevada. “Obesity is the No. 1 malnutrition problem in the
United States.” Both overeating and under-eating are forms of
malnutrition, with overeating being the more common of the two in our country.
In the years of 1992‑93, the average weight of American adults ages 25 to 30
was 171 pounds. In the years of 1985‑86, the average weight was 161
pounds for adults in that age group.
“Attack the evil that is within
yourself, rather than attacking the evil that is in others.”
- Confucius
If the present trend continues, without significant changes in American
lifestyles, they have predicted that more than 75% of American adults will be
obese by mid point in the next century. Moreover, Dr. John Foreyt has
pessimistically predicted that by the year 2230, almost every person in the
United States will be obese. No wonder that many public health workers
consider obesity, this self-inflicted plague on the American citizen, to be the
nation’s number one medical problem.
NOTE: Contrast these horrible American dietary trends to a United Nations
paper that estimated that every three seconds a child in a developing country
dies of malnourishment.
Recently, The American Heart Association upgraded obesity to be a “major
independent risk” factor for heart disease, adding it to a list that includes
smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, and a sedentary
lifestyle. Previously, the association listed obesity as a “contributing
risk” for heart disease. Though health officials have long warned that
obesity can cause coronary heart disease, which can lead to heart attacks, the
American Heart Association decided to upgrade its warnings only after recent
studies found that an ever increasing number of Americans are overweight.
A study published in the journal “Science” in May 1998, found that 54 percent
of U.S. adults and 25 percent of the nation’s children are heavier than is
considered healthy.
“In the long run, we shape our lives,
and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we
make are ultimately our own responsibility.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Recently, The American Cancer Society joined in with an extensive study on
obesity and mortality published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
It found that overweight people run a higher rate of premature death, even
among those people who didn’t smoke and were otherwise healthy during middle
life.
“To ensure good health: eat lightly,
breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an
interest in life.”
- William Londen
This is not to be unexpected. The National Center for Disease Control
estimates that more than 60 percent of the population of the United States now
lives a sedentary lifestyle. These Americans, according to both the 1986
and 1990 Federal Risk Factor Surveillance Surveys reported doing little or no
exercise. Twenty‑nine percent partook in no leisure time physical
activity at all in the month before the survey workers questioned them.
Of those who did some exercise, 64 percent were essentially sedentary in that
they did fewer than three, twenty minute sessions each week. Large‑scale
studies have shown that sedentary people have far more chronic health problems
such as heart disease, osteoporosis, hypertension, obesity, adult‑onset
diabetes and some forms of cancer than active people. Sedentary people
usually die sooner than physically active people. If longevity is a
desired goal, the more active you are in regular and moderate exercise, the
longer and healthier you will live.
“Better by far to be good and
courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but
the bit around you.”
- David Nicholls, One Day
In the United States, teachers have observed a significant decline in physical
activity during adolescence. Teachers also report that almost half the
youths in America ages 12 to 21 are not being physically active on a regular
basis. This shows up in the poor physical condition of many army
recruits. According to army trainers, some new recruits appear to have
spent most of their lives sitting on a couch constantly eating and drinking
while watching mind-numbing television.
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