The government is subsidizing poison. No doubt. But then again, many in this country have no self restraint. Took a stroll down the inner harbor today... these people are disgusting. I would say at least half were overweight with many of them disgustingly obese. Fat America. Yet we argue whether weed should be legal. What about ammonium bicarbonate, yellow 5, yellow 6, high fructose corn syrup, blue 1, carnauba wax, beef gelatin, enriched BLEACHED flour.
Well I can't stop the sun from killing me. I can stop myself from not eating crap!! And I agree with hehateme about weed. Even though I don't smoke it, it is less harmless than most shit people put in their body. And as Colorado has shown. Not everyone is going to start smoking weed and be drug addicts if it's legal.
Obesity Threatens to Overtake Hunger as No. 1 Global Health Concern
In 1950, the number of starving individuals on Earth was estimated to be around 700 million. At the time, obesity affected approximately 100 million people around the globe, primarily in rich countries.
These statistics have changed dramatically over the past six decades. As stated in today’s featured documentary, Globesity: Fat’s New Frontier, no low- to middle-income country has successfully managed to reduce hunger without shifting over into obesity, and very rapidly at that.
By 2010, the world’s hungry had marginally grown to 800 million, while the number of obese citizens of the world had ballooned to 500 million. The rate of “extreme obesity” (people with a BMI above 40) rose by 350 percent over the past few years alone in the US.
Estimates suggest that by 2030, more than one billion people, worldwide, will fall into the obese category. As stated on the Top Documentary Films’ site:1
In the 1950s, the food available was mostly fresh and grown locally. Today, the majority of foods consumed—even in the developing world—are highly processed foods, filled with sugars, harmful processed fats, and chemical additives.
Perhaps one of the strongest links can be seen with soda consumption. As sweetened beverages have become more common in developing countries, obesity rates have started climbing right along with beverage sales.
This is likely why Mexico has become so obese. They consume enormous quantities of soda, which is largely a result of lack of access to clean and inexpensive water alternatives that will not get them sick.
Obesity as a Harbinger of Death
Along with excess body weight come a wide range of other health problems. In the US, eight obesity-related diseases account for a staggering 75 percent of healthcare costs. These diseases include:
According to research published last year, one in five American deaths is now associated with obesity.3 And while the effect varies somewhat by your gender, race, and age, the younger you are, the greater obesity’s influence on your mortality.
Considering the dramatic rise in childhood obesity (one-third of American children aged two to 19 are now overweight or obese), these facts spell serious trouble for the future of our health care system, not to mention the overall quality of life for vast numbers of people.
As previously reported in the Guardian Express,4 kids are 40 percent heavier today compared to just 25 years ago, and a growing number of studies have linked rising childhood obesity rates to increased consumption of sugary beverages (including those sweetened with no- or low-cal sweeteners).
Most parents go to great lengths to keep their children safe from physical dangers. Yet, the majority of parents feed their children harmful foods without a thought for future consequences. It’s not the occasional treat here and there that I’m referring to.
It’s the fact that many children around the world are raised on processed foods, pizza, French fries, and fast-food hamburgers these days. And the outcome is identical regardless of which nation you live in.
As stated in the featured film, processed food products are just as dangerous to your health as tobacco and alcohol. Data collected from over 60,000 Canadians has confirmed this, showing that obesity now surpasses smoking in terms of creating ill health.
To Normalize Your Weight, You MUST Address Your Diet
Leading a common-sense, healthy lifestyle is your best bet to achieve health and longevity, and it really starts with your food choices. For a comprehensive guide on which foods to eat and which to avoid, please see my nutrition plan. Generally speaking, you should be looking to focus your diet on whole, ideally organic, unprocessed foods. For the best nutrition and health benefits, eat a good portion of your food raw.
I believe the two primary keys for successful weight management are severely restricting carbohydrates (sugars, fructose, and grains) in your diet, and increasing healthy fat consumption. This will optimize your insulin and leptin levels, which is key for maintaining a healthy weight and optimal health. The other part of the equation that is rarely addressed is the amount of protein consumed.
When it comes to meat, two key factors that will determine the healthfulness of your diet are the quality of the meat and the amount. Many eat too much protein, especially poor-quality, factory-farmed meats. Nutrition experts like Dr. Ron Rosedale believe most adults need about one gram of protein per kilogram of lean body mass, or one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body weight per day. (To calculate this, if your body fat mass is 20 percent, then your lean mass is 80 percent of your total body weight.)
There are a number of reasons why I believe it’s best to limit your protein intake. The first is that if you eat large amounts of protein your body doesn’t need, it will convert most of the excess calories to sugar. Additionally, it will need to remove the nitrogen waste products from your blood, which stresses your kidneys. Excessive protein can also have a stimulatory effect on mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)—a pathway that seems to be largely responsible for the pathology seen in cancer growth. When you reduce protein to just what your body needs, mTOR remains inhibited, which helps minimize your chances of cancer growth.
Last but not least, mankind also needs to return to traditional fare such as fermented foods. Virtually every country has a history of fermenting or culturing foods, and these are critical for gut health.
About 80 percent of your immune system resides in your gut, and research is stacking up showing that probiotics—beneficial bacteria—affect your health in a myriad of ways; it can even influence your ability to lose weight. A healthy diet is the ideal way to maintain a healthy gut, and regularly consuming traditionally fermented foods is the easiest, most cost effective way to ensure optimal gut flora. As for beverages, clean, pure water is your best bet. It’s really the only liquid your body truly needs.
The Importance of Exercise and Intermittently Fasting
Getting sufficient amounts of exercise is also critical. Even if you’re eating right, you still need to exercise to reach the highest levels of health, and you need to be exercising effectively, which means including high-intensity activities into your rotation.
High-intensity interval-type training boosts human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential for optimal health, strength, and vigor. HGH also helps boost weight loss. So along with core-strengthening exercises, strength training, and stretching, I highly recommend that twice a week you do Peak Fitness exercises, which raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a 90-second recovery period.
Additionally, a growing body of evidence shows that intermittent fasting is really effective for losing weight, improving your insulin and leptin receptor sensitivity, and can go a long way toward improving your overall health. This makes logical sense when you consider that our ancestors never had access to food 24/7. Our bodies are indeed “programmed” to not eat for periods of time.
One of the mechanisms that make intermittent fasting so effective for weight loss is the fact that it provokes the natural secretion of human growth hormone (HGH), which is a fat-burning hormone. Fasting also increases catecholamines, which increases resting energy expenditure, while decreasing insulin levels, which allows stored fat to be burned for fuel.
Together, these and other factors will turn you into an effective fat-burning machine. Hence, if like many tens of millions of people, your goal is to shed excess fat, fasting can be both effective and beneficial for improving many disease markers. To learn more about the ins and outs of intermittent fasting, or scheduled eating, please see my previous article, “What the Science Says About Intermittent Fasting.”
Take Control of Your Health
It’s important to realize that sugar is a primary dietary factor driving obesity and chronic disease development.5 Many also eat far too little healthy fat, and the combination of too much sugar and too little fat is driving disease rates through the roof. Understanding this formula puts you in the driver’s seat when it comes to prevention.
Again, a diet that promotes health is high in healthful fats and very, very low in sugar and non-vegetable carbohydrates, with a moderate amount of high-quality (organic, pastured) protein.
If you and your kids are hooked on fast food and other processed foods, you may need some help to kick the junk-food lifestyle. My optimized nutrition plan offers a step-by-step guide to feed your family right, and I encourage you to read through it now. You can find even more help in the book I wrote on the subject, called Generation XL: Raising Healthy, Intelligent Kids in a High-Tech, Junk-Food World.
In 1950, the number of starving individuals on Earth was estimated to be around 700 million. At the time, obesity affected approximately 100 million people around the globe, primarily in rich countries.
These statistics have changed dramatically over the past six decades. As stated in today’s featured documentary, Globesity: Fat’s New Frontier, no low- to middle-income country has successfully managed to reduce hunger without shifting over into obesity, and very rapidly at that.
By 2010, the world’s hungry had marginally grown to 800 million, while the number of obese citizens of the world had ballooned to 500 million. The rate of “extreme obesity” (people with a BMI above 40) rose by 350 percent over the past few years alone in the US.
Estimates suggest that by 2030, more than one billion people, worldwide, will fall into the obese category. As stated on the Top Documentary Films’ site:1
“In India, it’s anticipated that 100 million people will have diabetes in the near future and in Mexico, the largest consumer of carbonated beverage in the world, where diabetes is already a headline killer and where the weight problem is so acute, special programs have been made available offering free fitness classes and bariatric surgery.
If you thought obesity was just an issue in the first world economies, like the US, UK, and Australia, this documentary will set you straight.”
Carb-rich highly processed foods, along with rarely ever fasting, are primary drivers of these statistics. Wherever a highly processed food diet becomes the norm, obesity inevitably follows.
In the 1950s, the food available was mostly fresh and grown locally. Today, the majority of foods consumed—even in the developing world—are highly processed foods, filled with sugars, harmful processed fats, and chemical additives.
Perhaps one of the strongest links can be seen with soda consumption. As sweetened beverages have become more common in developing countries, obesity rates have started climbing right along with beverage sales.
This is likely why Mexico has become so obese. They consume enormous quantities of soda, which is largely a result of lack of access to clean and inexpensive water alternatives that will not get them sick.
Obesity as a Harbinger of Death
Along with excess body weight come a wide range of other health problems. In the US, eight obesity-related diseases account for a staggering 75 percent of healthcare costs. These diseases include:
According to research published last year, one in five American deaths is now associated with obesity.3 And while the effect varies somewhat by your gender, race, and age, the younger you are, the greater obesity’s influence on your mortality.
Considering the dramatic rise in childhood obesity (one-third of American children aged two to 19 are now overweight or obese), these facts spell serious trouble for the future of our health care system, not to mention the overall quality of life for vast numbers of people.
As previously reported in the Guardian Express,4 kids are 40 percent heavier today compared to just 25 years ago, and a growing number of studies have linked rising childhood obesity rates to increased consumption of sugary beverages (including those sweetened with no- or low-cal sweeteners).
Most parents go to great lengths to keep their children safe from physical dangers. Yet, the majority of parents feed their children harmful foods without a thought for future consequences. It’s not the occasional treat here and there that I’m referring to.
It’s the fact that many children around the world are raised on processed foods, pizza, French fries, and fast-food hamburgers these days. And the outcome is identical regardless of which nation you live in.
As stated in the featured film, processed food products are just as dangerous to your health as tobacco and alcohol. Data collected from over 60,000 Canadians has confirmed this, showing that obesity now surpasses smoking in terms of creating ill health.
To Normalize Your Weight, You MUST Address Your Diet
Leading a common-sense, healthy lifestyle is your best bet to achieve health and longevity, and it really starts with your food choices. For a comprehensive guide on which foods to eat and which to avoid, please see my nutrition plan. Generally speaking, you should be looking to focus your diet on whole, ideally organic, unprocessed foods. For the best nutrition and health benefits, eat a good portion of your food raw.
When it comes to meat, two key factors that will determine the healthfulness of your diet are the quality of the meat and the amount. Many eat too much protein, especially poor-quality, factory-farmed meats. Nutrition experts like Dr. Ron Rosedale believe most adults need about one gram of protein per kilogram of lean body mass, or one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body weight per day. (To calculate this, if your body fat mass is 20 percent, then your lean mass is 80 percent of your total body weight.)
There are a number of reasons why I believe it’s best to limit your protein intake. The first is that if you eat large amounts of protein your body doesn’t need, it will convert most of the excess calories to sugar. Additionally, it will need to remove the nitrogen waste products from your blood, which stresses your kidneys. Excessive protein can also have a stimulatory effect on mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)—a pathway that seems to be largely responsible for the pathology seen in cancer growth. When you reduce protein to just what your body needs, mTOR remains inhibited, which helps minimize your chances of cancer growth.
Last but not least, mankind also needs to return to traditional fare such as fermented foods. Virtually every country has a history of fermenting or culturing foods, and these are critical for gut health.
About 80 percent of your immune system resides in your gut, and research is stacking up showing that probiotics—beneficial bacteria—affect your health in a myriad of ways; it can even influence your ability to lose weight. A healthy diet is the ideal way to maintain a healthy gut, and regularly consuming traditionally fermented foods is the easiest, most cost effective way to ensure optimal gut flora. As for beverages, clean, pure water is your best bet. It’s really the only liquid your body truly needs.
The Importance of Exercise and Intermittently Fasting
Getting sufficient amounts of exercise is also critical. Even if you’re eating right, you still need to exercise to reach the highest levels of health, and you need to be exercising effectively, which means including high-intensity activities into your rotation.
High-intensity interval-type training boosts human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential for optimal health, strength, and vigor. HGH also helps boost weight loss. So along with core-strengthening exercises, strength training, and stretching, I highly recommend that twice a week you do Peak Fitness exercises, which raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a 90-second recovery period.
Additionally, a growing body of evidence shows that intermittent fasting is really effective for losing weight, improving your insulin and leptin receptor sensitivity, and can go a long way toward improving your overall health. This makes logical sense when you consider that our ancestors never had access to food 24/7. Our bodies are indeed “programmed” to not eat for periods of time.
One of the mechanisms that make intermittent fasting so effective for weight loss is the fact that it provokes the natural secretion of human growth hormone (HGH), which is a fat-burning hormone. Fasting also increases catecholamines, which increases resting energy expenditure, while decreasing insulin levels, which allows stored fat to be burned for fuel.
Together, these and other factors will turn you into an effective fat-burning machine. Hence, if like many tens of millions of people, your goal is to shed excess fat, fasting can be both effective and beneficial for improving many disease markers. To learn more about the ins and outs of intermittent fasting, or scheduled eating, please see my previous article, “What the Science Says About Intermittent Fasting.”
Take Control of Your Health
It’s important to realize that sugar is a primary dietary factor driving obesity and chronic disease development.5 Many also eat far too little healthy fat, and the combination of too much sugar and too little fat is driving disease rates through the roof. Understanding this formula puts you in the driver’s seat when it comes to prevention.
Again, a diet that promotes health is high in healthful fats and very, very low in sugar and non-vegetable carbohydrates, with a moderate amount of high-quality (organic, pastured) protein.
If you and your kids are hooked on fast food and other processed foods, you may need some help to kick the junk-food lifestyle. My optimized nutrition plan offers a step-by-step guide to feed your family right, and I encourage you to read through it now. You can find even more help in the book I wrote on the subject, called Generation XL: Raising Healthy, Intelligent Kids in a High-Tech, Junk-Food World.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/07/childhood-obesity-costs/7298461/
[h=1]Price tag for childhood obesity: $19,000 per kid[/h] Michelle Healy, USA TODAY 4:42 p.m. EDT April 7, 2014
(Photo: Thinkstock via Getty Images)
SHARE 5008 CONNECT 817 TWEET 68 COMMENTEMAILMORE
Over a lifetime, the medical costs associated with childhood obesity total about $19,000 per child compared with those for a child of normal weight, a new analysis shows.
The costs are about $12,900 per person for children of normal weight who become overweight or obese in adulthood, according to the analysis by researchers at the Duke Global Health Institute and Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore and published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
The $19,000 estimate reflects direct medical costs such as doctors' visits and medication but not indirect costs such as absenteeism and lost productivity into adulthood. The cost is "large, although perhaps not as large as some people would have guessed," says lead author Eric Finkelstein, a health economist.
"In the case of childhood obesity, the real costs do not occur until decades later when these kids get adult health problems at a greater rate," he says.
Obesity is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers and a wide range of other diseases. About one in three adults and nearly one in five children in the United States are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
MORE: No real progress on child obesity, latest report says
More: Obesity rates drop among youngest kids
The estimates highlight "the financial consequences of inaction and the potential medical savings from obesity prevention efforts that successfully reduce or delay obesity onset," Finkelstein says.
The study notes that when multiplied by the number of all obese 10-year-olds in the U.S. today, the lifetime medical costs for this age alone reaches roughly $14 billion. That's nearly twice the Department of Health and Human Services' $7.8-billion budget for the Head Start program in fiscal year 2012, the analysis says.
To determine the estimates, researchers evaluated and updated existing research on lifetime costs of childhood obesity, focusing on six published studies.
The per-child estimates are valuable when looking at cost effectiveness, says John Cawley, co-director of the Institute on Health Economics, Health Behaviors and Disparities at Cornell University. He was not involved in the latest study.
If a new school-based intervention program is developed to decrease the probability of childhood obesity by a certain percentage, "you can use the numbers in the study to figure out what kind of savings that applies to the health care system," Cawley says.
The $19,000 estimate is more than the roughly $16,930 the College Board says one year of college costs at a public four-year institution, including tuition, fees, books, room and board and other expenses.
[h=1]Price tag for childhood obesity: $19,000 per kid[/h] Michelle Healy, USA TODAY 4:42 p.m. EDT April 7, 2014
(Photo: Thinkstock via Getty Images)
SHARE 5008 CONNECT 817 TWEET 68 COMMENTEMAILMORE
Over a lifetime, the medical costs associated with childhood obesity total about $19,000 per child compared with those for a child of normal weight, a new analysis shows.
The costs are about $12,900 per person for children of normal weight who become overweight or obese in adulthood, according to the analysis by researchers at the Duke Global Health Institute and Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore and published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
The $19,000 estimate reflects direct medical costs such as doctors' visits and medication but not indirect costs such as absenteeism and lost productivity into adulthood. The cost is "large, although perhaps not as large as some people would have guessed," says lead author Eric Finkelstein, a health economist.
"In the case of childhood obesity, the real costs do not occur until decades later when these kids get adult health problems at a greater rate," he says.
Obesity is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers and a wide range of other diseases. About one in three adults and nearly one in five children in the United States are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
MORE: No real progress on child obesity, latest report says
More: Obesity rates drop among youngest kids
The estimates highlight "the financial consequences of inaction and the potential medical savings from obesity prevention efforts that successfully reduce or delay obesity onset," Finkelstein says.
The study notes that when multiplied by the number of all obese 10-year-olds in the U.S. today, the lifetime medical costs for this age alone reaches roughly $14 billion. That's nearly twice the Department of Health and Human Services' $7.8-billion budget for the Head Start program in fiscal year 2012, the analysis says.
To determine the estimates, researchers evaluated and updated existing research on lifetime costs of childhood obesity, focusing on six published studies.
The per-child estimates are valuable when looking at cost effectiveness, says John Cawley, co-director of the Institute on Health Economics, Health Behaviors and Disparities at Cornell University. He was not involved in the latest study.
If a new school-based intervention program is developed to decrease the probability of childhood obesity by a certain percentage, "you can use the numbers in the study to figure out what kind of savings that applies to the health care system," Cawley says.
The $19,000 estimate is more than the roughly $16,930 the College Board says one year of college costs at a public four-year institution, including tuition, fees, books, room and board and other expenses.
Fuck you guys are clueless..of course not everyone is going to take up a new habit just because the law has changed..these people have already forged their way in life and have made the decision not to be mindless stoners.
What about the 9 year old who now has access to pot...think he understands what pot does to your mind?
[h=2]Dimethylpolysiloxane 101 (a.k.a. Silly Putty)[/h] Dimethylsiloxane is commonly used in vinegary-smelling silicone caulks, adhesives, and aquarium sealants, a component in silicone grease and other silicone based lubricants, as well as in defoaming agents, mold release agents, damping fluids, heat transfer fluids, polishes, cosmetics, hair conditioners AND IN OUR FOOD!
There have been no major studies conducted on the safety of dimethylsiloxane in food by the FDA or the Food Industry since it was approved in 1998, but the food industry is allowed to use it in anything they want (except milk). Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwiches, McDonalds French Fries, KFC Mash Potatoes and Biscuits, Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists, Five Guys French Fries, Dominos Bread Sticks, and on and on – the list of guilty restaurants is mind-blowing.
When I compared the ingredient list of McDonald’s french fries in the US vs. the UK version, I was floored to witness the drastic differences. Europeans do not use dimethylsiloxane. Look closely at the ingredients in McDonald’s french fries below. Do you see how the french fries in the U.K. version are basically just potatoes, vegetable oil, a little sugar and salt? How can McDonald’s make french fries with such an uncomplicated list of ingredients all over Europe, but not over here? Why do McDonald’s french fries in the U.S. have to have an “anti-foaming” agent? Do the brits like extra foam? No, they don’t, Europe actually regulates this ingredient because they know this man-made chemical was never intended to be consumed by humans. This whole time McDonalds has known about this and chooses to continue to serve it’s US citizens silly putty.
There have been no major studies conducted on the safety of dimethylsiloxane in food by the FDA or the Food Industry since it was approved in 1998, but the food industry is allowed to use it in anything they want (except milk). Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwiches, McDonalds French Fries, KFC Mash Potatoes and Biscuits, Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists, Five Guys French Fries, Dominos Bread Sticks, and on and on – the list of guilty restaurants is mind-blowing.
When I compared the ingredient list of McDonald’s french fries in the US vs. the UK version, I was floored to witness the drastic differences. Europeans do not use dimethylsiloxane. Look closely at the ingredients in McDonald’s french fries below. Do you see how the french fries in the U.K. version are basically just potatoes, vegetable oil, a little sugar and salt? How can McDonald’s make french fries with such an uncomplicated list of ingredients all over Europe, but not over here? Why do McDonald’s french fries in the U.S. have to have an “anti-foaming” agent? Do the brits like extra foam? No, they don’t, Europe actually regulates this ingredient because they know this man-made chemical was never intended to be consumed by humans. This whole time McDonalds has known about this and chooses to continue to serve it’s US citizens silly putty.
David DiSalvo, a writer at Forbes, decided to really look into the eggs in popular fast food breakfast sandwiches. What he discovered was that their "eggs" are really a strange concoction that includes eggs and "premium egg blend." Some things that are in this special blend include glycerin, a solvent found in soap and shaving cream, dimethylpolysiloxane, a silicone that can also be found in Silly Putty, and calcium silicate, a sealant used on roofs and concrete. The age of just cracking an egg and cooking it has long since passed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/fast-food-truths_n_4296243.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/fast-food-truths_n_4296243.html
Not asking for an apology ,
. Just understanding . If you to want label them as 'lazy fat asses with no will power ', go for it . Those poisons (food additives ) u speak have gone a long way in the rapid rise of obesity in America (type II diabetes ) . FDA /govt r complicit . High fructose corn syrup should be banned . The science is there . But it would mean bringing hardship to corporate America. So forget it- lets just 'treat ' the disease . ...
Not asking for an apology ,
High fructose corn syrup should be banned . The science is there . But it would mean bringing hardship to corporate America. So forget it- lets just 'treat ' the disease . ...
It's easier to eat like shit. And in most cases cheaper too so I see where it can get out of hand for these large folks. I don't mean to label, just wish these people would educate themselves and take care of themselves a little better. I'm not asking for single digit body fat numbers here, just a little self respect.
It's an epidemic and you are right, corporations are benefiting the most. Then the little man like us get fucked with higher health care costs which is only going to get worse.
Obesity Threatens to Overtake Hunger as No. 1 Global Health Concern
In 1950, the number of starving individuals on Earth was estimated to be around 700 million. At the time, obesity affected approximately 100 million people around the globe, primarily in rich countries.
These statistics have changed dramatically over the past six decades. As stated in today’s featured documentary, Globesity: Fat’s New Frontier, no low- to middle-income country has successfully managed to reduce hunger without shifting over into obesity, and very rapidly at that.
By 2010, the world’s hungry had marginally grown to 800 million, while the number of obese citizens of the world had ballooned to 500 million. The rate of “extreme obesity” (people with a BMI above 40) rose by 350 percent over the past few years alone in the US.
Estimates suggest that by 2030, more than one billion people, worldwide, will fall into the obese category. As stated on the Top Documentary Films’ site:1“In India, it’s anticipated that 100 million people will have diabetes in the near future and in Mexico, the largest consumer of carbonated beverage in the world, where diabetes is already a headline killer and where the weight problem is so acute, special programs have been made available offering free fitness classes and bariatric surgery.
If you thought obesity was just an issue in the first world economies, like the US, UK, and Australia, this documentary will set you straight.”Carb-rich highly processed foods, along with rarely ever fasting, are primary drivers of these statistics. Wherever a highly processed food diet becomes the norm, obesity inevitably follows.
In the 1950s, the food available was mostly fresh and grown locally. Today, the majority of foods consumed—even in the developing world—are highly processed foods, filled with sugars, harmful processed fats, and chemical additives.
Perhaps one of the strongest links can be seen with soda consumption. As sweetened beverages have become more common in developing countries, obesity rates have started climbing right along with beverage sales.
This is likely why Mexico has become so obese. They consume enormous quantities of soda, which is largely a result of lack of access to clean and inexpensive water alternatives that will not get them sick.
Obesity as a Harbinger of Death
Along with excess body weight come a wide range of other health problems. In the US, eight obesity-related diseases account for a staggering 75 percent of healthcare costs. These diseases include:
According to research published last year, one in five American deaths is now associated with obesity.3 And while the effect varies somewhat by your gender, race, and age, the younger you are, the greater obesity’s influence on your mortality.
Considering the dramatic rise in childhood obesity (one-third of American children aged two to 19 are now overweight or obese), these facts spell serious trouble for the future of our health care system, not to mention the overall quality of life for vast numbers of people.
As previously reported in the Guardian Express,4 kids are 40 percent heavier today compared to just 25 years ago, and a growing number of studies have linked rising childhood obesity rates to increased consumption of sugary beverages (including those sweetened with no- or low-cal sweeteners).
Most parents go to great lengths to keep their children safe from physical dangers. Yet, the majority of parents feed their children harmful foods without a thought for future consequences. It’s not the occasional treat here and there that I’m referring to.
It’s the fact that many children around the world are raised on processed foods, pizza, French fries, and fast-food hamburgers these days. And the outcome is identical regardless of which nation you live in.
As stated in the featured film, processed food products are just as dangerous to your health as tobacco and alcohol. Data collected from over 60,000 Canadians has confirmed this, showing that obesity now surpasses smoking in terms of creating ill health.
To Normalize Your Weight, You MUST Address Your Diet
Leading a common-sense, healthy lifestyle is your best bet to achieve health and longevity, and it really starts with your food choices. For a comprehensive guide on which foods to eat and which to avoid, please see my nutrition plan. Generally speaking, you should be looking to focus your diet on whole, ideally organic, unprocessed foods. For the best nutrition and health benefits, eat a good portion of your food raw.
I believe the two primary keys for successful weight management are severely restricting carbohydrates (sugars, fructose, and grains) in your diet, and increasing healthy fat consumption. This will optimize your insulin and leptin levels, which is key for maintaining a healthy weight and optimal health. The other part of the equation that is rarely addressed is the amount of protein consumed.
When it comes to meat, two key factors that will determine the healthfulness of your diet are the quality of the meat and the amount. Many eat too much protein, especially poor-quality, factory-farmed meats. Nutrition experts like Dr. Ron Rosedale believe most adults need about one gram of protein per kilogram of lean body mass, or one-half gram of protein per pound of lean body weight per day. (To calculate this, if your body fat mass is 20 percent, then your lean mass is 80 percent of your total body weight.)
There are a number of reasons why I believe it’s best to limit your protein intake. The first is that if you eat large amounts of protein your body doesn’t need, it will convert most of the excess calories to sugar. Additionally, it will need to remove the nitrogen waste products from your blood, which stresses your kidneys. Excessive protein can also have a stimulatory effect on mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)—a pathway that seems to be largely responsible for the pathology seen in cancer growth. When you reduce protein to just what your body needs, mTOR remains inhibited, which helps minimize your chances of cancer growth.
Last but not least, mankind also needs to return to traditional fare such as fermented foods. Virtually every country has a history of fermenting or culturing foods, and these are critical for gut health.
About 80 percent of your immune system resides in your gut, and research is stacking up showing that probiotics—beneficial bacteria—affect your health in a myriad of ways; it can even influence your ability to lose weight. A healthy diet is the ideal way to maintain a healthy gut, and regularly consuming traditionally fermented foods is the easiest, most cost effective way to ensure optimal gut flora. As for beverages, clean, pure water is your best bet. It’s really the only liquid your body truly needs.
The Importance of Exercise and Intermittently Fasting
Getting sufficient amounts of exercise is also critical. Even if you’re eating right, you still need to exercise to reach the highest levels of health, and you need to be exercising effectively, which means including high-intensity activities into your rotation.
High-intensity interval-type training boosts human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential for optimal health, strength, and vigor. HGH also helps boost weight loss. So along with core-strengthening exercises, strength training, and stretching, I highly recommend that twice a week you do Peak Fitness exercises, which raise your heart rate up to your anaerobic threshold for 20 to 30 seconds, followed by a 90-second recovery period.
Additionally, a growing body of evidence shows that intermittent fasting is really effective for losing weight, improving your insulin and leptin receptor sensitivity, and can go a long way toward improving your overall health. This makes logical sense when you consider that our ancestors never had access to food 24/7. Our bodies are indeed “programmed” to not eat for periods of time.
One of the mechanisms that make intermittent fasting so effective for weight loss is the fact that it provokes the natural secretion of human growth hormone (HGH), which is a fat-burning hormone. Fasting also increases catecholamines, which increases resting energy expenditure, while decreasing insulin levels, which allows stored fat to be burned for fuel.
Together, these and other factors will turn you into an effective fat-burning machine. Hence, if like many tens of millions of people, your goal is to shed excess fat, fasting can be both effective and beneficial for improving many disease markers. To learn more about the ins and outs of intermittent fasting, or scheduled eating, please see my previous article, “What the Science Says About Intermittent Fasting.”
Take Control of Your Health
It’s important to realize that sugar is a primary dietary factor driving obesity and chronic disease development.5 Many also eat far too little healthy fat, and the combination of too much sugar and too little fat is driving disease rates through the roof. Understanding this formula puts you in the driver’s seat when it comes to prevention.
Again, a diet that promotes health is high in healthful fats and very, very low in sugar and non-vegetable carbohydrates, with a moderate amount of high-quality (organic, pastured) protein.
If you and your kids are hooked on fast food and other processed foods, you may need some help to kick the junk-food lifestyle. My optimized nutrition plan offers a step-by-step guide to feed your family right, and I encourage you to read through it now. You can find even more help in the book I wrote on the subject, called Generation XL: Raising Healthy, Intelligent Kids in a High-Tech, Junk-Food World.
from the article:
"It’s important to realize that sugar is a primary dietary factor driving obesity and chronic disease development"
sugar is addictive. Food companies love it-- what's not to love? It tastes good and its a preservative . Let's put it in everything!!!
good read:
http://www.macleans.ca/society/health/death-by-sugar-the-biggest-health-crisis-of-our-time/
here's WHO:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2014/consultation-sugar-guideline/en/
'WHO’s current recommendation, from 2002, is that sugars should make up less than 10% of total energy intake per day. The new draft guideline also proposes that sugars should be less than 10% of total energy intake per day. It further suggests that a reduction to below 5% of total energy intake per day would have additional benefits. Five per cent of total energy intake is equivalent to around 25 grams (around 6 teaspoons) of sugar per day for an adult of normal Body Mass Index (BMI).'
25 grams a day? good luck with that
