“Everyone Knows Someone Who Needs This Information!” (TM)
Last week I tried to connect the need for moderation with the Holidays, celebrations, exercise and the Globesity Epidemic and said there’s reasons to make this a personal and family Quest, immediately. Let’s start, right!
Before New Year, you can mitigate the “damage” of holiday parties, so there’s less “need” for New Year Resolutions or for being behind the 8-ball with lots of holiday weight gain. You want a better outcome, right!
Last week I showed numbers that almost ALL of humanity is getting seriously fat, as a species. You can read additional stats here, and at Global Obesity Statistics.
More nations in perspective — some new:
Worst — American Samoa. 94% of population is obese
Kiribati is at 82% overweight.
French Polynesia – 75% overweight
Saudi Arabia — 74% overweight
Panama — 67.5%
United States — 66.9% of us are overweight
Germany — 66.5% are fat
Egypt — 66%
Kuwait — 64% overweight
Bosnia and Herzegovina — 63%
New Zealand — 62.7% overweight
Malta — 62.3%
Israel — 61.9% fat
Croatia — 61.4%
Bahrain and the United Kingdom — 61% overweight
Australia — 60.8%
Macedonia and Barbados — 60.4% fat
Seychelles — 60.1%
Chile — 59.7% overweight
Canada — 59.1%
Italy — 57.4% fat
Spain — 55%
Brazil — 54.7% overweight
France — 46.5%
China — 41.1% fat
India — 37.5% overweight
Japan — less than 30% are overweight
Laos and Ghana — Best
Where does this leave us and why?
What I’ve learned in researching this over the years is that knowledge and behavioral choices count!
The French are, I believe, keeping their weight down successfully because overweight is so taboo there. Women are savvy about eating healthfully on small amounts of food, so much so that it is an art form, especially necessary in the upper classes.
Contrary to being “good” numbers, even though at the bottom rankings, those of China and India are huge wake-up calls to the governments of those countries. The numbers of overweight people in those statistics are massive (and would be enough for whole country populations, elsewhere). Their future health care will bankrupt them. Nutrition education; farming practices for healthy food for everyone; return to heritage foods and meals; not too many empty, deleterious carbs (like white rice, grain flours or sugar) is necessary to instigate as progressive, immediate change.
The Campbell studies in China point out a massive problem, and as affluence arrives, it will only be greater. And, with the massive pollution plaguing the land, more obesity will happen as individual bodies try to cellularly protect themselves from the toxins, by using “fat” to segregate them. Pollution causes tissue pH acidity — the cause of disease. This is a massive problem in the making.
India has begun to have an out-of-control, huge diabetes problem, even though the obesity stats are not as bad as many countries. It’s a crisis for the country and is almost exclusively caused by rampant sugar use from candies and desserts, from upwardly-mobile Indians getting better paychecks. Losing this affluent class would be an economic blow, so educate them. Only if they are healthy people as the spearhead of all your economic hopes can you have a future!
The Samoans have had representation from several individuals on The Biggest Loser, because their culture lauds big bodies — possibly as an acknowledgment of famines or long sea journeys in the past, where only the fat and fit survived. This may be a version of Wilson Syndrome OR of the Thrifty Gene Theory.
Wilson’s Syndrome is discounted by some, but that’s self-serving, when the accuracy of blood tests for thyroid hormones is seriously questioned by just as qualified practitioners! And, when people are treated for Wilsons and FEEL better and can lose weight better, that counts, more than anything!
Groups most at risk for Wilson’s Syndrome are those who have experienced repeated episodes of famine. These groups include: Jews, Russians, Scots, Welsh, Irish and Native Americans. And, if your ethnicity combines several of these, become much more aware of what Wilson’s is all about! Regardless of ethnicity, 80% of victims are female. Anyone can get Wilson’s. Read more about the work of Dr. Broda Barnes, too. (I think you’ll find reference in my archive.)
Stress is at the Core of the obesity problems in many countries, and with this huge economic downturn, and personal finances in decline, I expect a lot more obesity and a lot more diabetes to surface. Stress makes more adrenaline hormone and that affects how much insulin hormone we are dealing with!
It doesn’t matter if the stressor is war — as it was in Central Europe (like the numbers from Bosnia, Croatia etc.,) or famine or lack of food or less nutritious food (for the Native Americans).
The work of Dr. Barry Sears, PhD and his Zone Diet Program, along with the work of Dr. Robert O. Young, PhD and his pH Alkaline systems are central, as is understanding your ethnically optimal diet, which can be elucidated somewhat in the work of Dr. Peter D’Adamo, ND.
Countries are putting forth their most beautiful young people as “typical” and that’s before the statistics just claim them as more victims. There are barely any countries that are doing a decent job, citizen by citizen. Most are either thin because they’re poor and / or malnourished, rather than successfully managing their normal, healthy weight themselves.
Even those beautiful Scandinavians are not exempt.
So, that’s the reason to laud those who are doing the needed steps for health.
Among those, I include the Okinawans on traditional dietary foods (they are the main reason the Japanese stats look so good).
And, I include the Native Americans who have embraced a return to their ancestral foods and meals, eschewing the modern foods which were killing them from amazing rates of diabetes and heart disease. Those tribes include the Pima Tribe — highest in diabetes, worldwide (50+% of tribe members).
Native Americans and Alaska First Nations who have embraced modern foods have at least double the diabetes incidence of other Americans!
Most cultures with large numbers of fat people also tend to NOT be good at distinguishing when they start on the obesity path themselves. This is a scientific fact borne out in statements by participants in The Biggest Loser.
And, we know that people “start” getting fat, on a cellular level, with aberrations of metabolism etc. beginning 7 years before one starts to “look” fat.
Diet — portions and access to fresh vegetables and fruit as diet basis; enough fresh water daily; moderate exercise and stress reduction techniques are the key to solving this Globesity Epidemic.
More, next time.
Best to all — Em
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(c)2010 Em at http://diabetesdietdialogue.wordpress.com
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