Obesity As an Epidemic
The Tormont Webster’s Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary defines the word obese as follows:
Obese – Extremely fat; unpleasantly overweight. See synonyms at fat. [Latin obesus, “grown fat by eating” from past participle of obedere, to eat away.
I define Obesity as a sickness, whereby an individual is not able to control his or her weight. Through the consumption of food products, which are reported to nourish human beings and sustain their lives, people grow increasing larger in their physical proportions and are afflicted with a whole host of physical and psychological illnesses. Individuals who suffer from this disease seem to be growing larger and they don’t even understand why.
What is food? Food is defined by Webster’s as:
Food – 1. Any material, usually of plant or animal origin, containing or consisting of essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals, that is taken in and assimilated by an organism to maintain life and growth. 2. A specified kind of nourishment. 3. Nourishment eaten in solid form, as distinguished from liquid nourishment.
Intrinsically, I know that food – (real healthy and nourishing food) comes from the earth, does not need to be modified by human hands and is best consumed in its uncooked state. Just think of an apple or a banana. Whenever I consume apples or bananas, I feel good, energized and whole. There are no ingredients listed on an apple or a banana because they are natural whole foods created by the earth. You do not need to cook them to enjoy eating them. I also know that there are other products available on the market, which are called food, but are really questionable. Can they even be classified food?
Think of a box of cereal, which most of us have been conditioned somehow to think of as nourishing food.
It struck me one day, when I reached into my cupboard for a quick and easy meal - a box of cereal, which I thought tasted yummy called “Golden Grahams”. What are Golden Grahams? I examined the box carefully and was surprised by what I found.
Ingredients:
1. Whole grain wheat
2. Sugar
3. Corn meal
4. Brown sugar syrup
5. Modified cornstarch
6. Canola and or rice bran oil
7. Honey
8. Salt
9. Nonfat milk
10. Baking soda
11. Calcium carbonate
12. Dextrose
13. Trisodium phosphate
14. Zinc and iron (mineral nutrients)
15. Vitamin c (sodium ascorbate)
16. A B vitamin (niacinamide)
17. Artificial flavor
18. Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride)
19. Vitamin B2 (riboflavin)
20. Vitamin B1 (Thaimin mononitrate)
21. Vitamin A (palmitate)
22. A B vitamin (folic acid)
23. Vitamin B12
24. Vitamin D
25. BHT added to preserve freshness
26. Contains Wheat and milk ingredients
Distributed by General Mills Cereals, LLC
Look at that. This product, which I intended to use to nourish my body, had 26 ingredients! What are those, I wondered? What is Palmitate? What is Trisodium Phosphate? What are wheat and milk ingredients? What is Pyridoxine Hydrochlorate? What are they doing in my food? What do they do when they enter my body? These things sound perfectly toxic if you ask me. They sound like chemicals!
Other markings on the package (listed below) assured me that this was a viable and nourishing product for human consumption – even though I intrinsically knew otherwise [my comments are in brackets]:
· This package is sold by weight, not by volume. You can be assured of proper weight even though some settling of contents normally occurs during shipping and handling. [I think it is safe to interpret this statement to mean that if you consume this product, you will gain weight]
· Meets the American heart association food criteria for saturated fat and cholesterol for healthy people over age 2.
· While many factors affect heart disease, diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of this disease. [Why would the word disease be placed on a nourishing product for human consumption?]
Furthermore:
· General Mills is committed to providing you with nutritious quality products.
I began to wonder why apples and bananas don’t make such claims.
I believe it is safe to say that products, which list ingredients, are not natural or whole foods. Indeed, they are probably not even foods… and certainly not safe for human consumption.
If our bodies require fat in order to maintain their set point weight, and if fat individuals are depriving themselves of fat in order to prevent themselves from growing larger, then why on earth are we classifying people who suffer from obesity as fat?
Obesity is a sickness and a serious epidemic. Obesity is an outrage, which has been perpetrated on our society by multi national corporations. We need more knowledge than is being provided by the FDA. We need to think outside of the Box! We need to think WAI.
While I am not an obese person, I have watched my mother suffer for 36 years with weight issues and obesity. I have witnessed first hand what this has done to her and how her illness has impacted my life. I love my mother and want to see her enjoy her body as she has enabled me to enjoy mine. Your diet is a natural one. Having tried it myself - for purposes of overall health maintenance, I noticed that it not only cleared my skin but allowed me to regain my set point weight of approximately 128 pounds, where as before your diet I was 135 to 138 pounds at 5'8" tall.
I would be grateful for your imput along with anyone else who wishes to help me explore this epidemic.
Obesity in relationship to food and the Wai diet
-
Catherine
- Posts: 2
- https://cutt.ly/meble-kuchenne-wroclaw
- Joined: Sat 05 Aug 2006 02:38
Hello Catherine, welcome on the forum. 
I personally don't see obesity as a disease, though it is a disease by definition. I see it more as a result of an addiction. An addiction to the addictives in certain foods. So basically a disorder, "an abnormal physical or mental condition", according to the Merriam-Webster Online.
But obesity is only part of the problem. You can stuff yourself with toxins, and not be obese.
Do you eat according to Wai? And if so, how did you get to it?
I personally don't see obesity as a disease, though it is a disease by definition. I see it more as a result of an addiction. An addiction to the addictives in certain foods. So basically a disorder, "an abnormal physical or mental condition", according to the Merriam-Webster Online.
But obesity is only part of the problem. You can stuff yourself with toxins, and not be obese.
Do you eat according to Wai? And if so, how did you get to it?
Yes, what obesity does to a person is terrible. People think that they overeat because they are weak, and therefore blame it on themselves. Its especially damaging because everybody 'can see that they are fat and therefore weak', whereas, for example, it doesnt show in someone who smokes a lot of cigarettes that he/she has polluted his/her lungs.
The confrontation and humiliation is always there, severely damaging people emotionally, while its not even their fault, but they dont know it...
The confrontation and humiliation is always there, severely damaging people emotionally, while its not even their fault, but they dont know it...
Some people are just out of control. I know some people and they cram all kinds of rubbish in their mouths - instead of buying one or two donuts at Krispy Kreme they will buy a whole box. They don't seem to care that they look grotesque, and their parents indulge them by giving them money to buy these sorts of food (I'm talking about high school students).RRM wrote:Yes, what obesity does to a person is terrible. People think that they overeat because they are weak, and therefore blame it on themselves. Its especially damaging because everybody 'can see that they are fat and therefore weak', whereas, for example, it doesnt show in someone who smokes a lot of cigarettes that he/she has polluted his/her lungs.
The confrontation and humiliation is always there, severely damaging people emotionally, while its not even their fault, but they dont know it...
They seem happy souls - what I don't understand is didn't they realize something was wrong long before they reached this state? Didn't they try anything drastic when they realized they were looking much fatter than their peers?
I think it is a weakness because these people seem undisciplined in their food choices. They shouldn't be buying certain foods but you won't see them overeating on 'healthy' things but on rubbishy artificially processed foods.
Even if you wanted to overeat you can control things to a certain extent by buying things that are healthier and overeating on them but these people seem to buy things that are known by everybody to be bad for health.
I really can't understand this type of person and I am talking about grossly obese not ten kilos overweight. They don't seem to care as I have said so maybe personality and obesity are linked in these people; they are less concerned with their weight than most people and enjoy the pleasures of eating too much and are jolly. Such people may not experience as much anxiety as others who feel uncomfortable when their weight balloons out and try to do something about it.
Maybe this is an egocentric POV but I wouldn't be jolly if I was grossly obese, so maybe these people's psychological makeup is different and that's why they got so obese in the first place.
Especially that type of food is very addictive. A processed food addiction isn't recognized as such, even more, obesity has been, and is still, regarded as a sign of prosperity. Heroin addicts also look terrible, and they don't change either. And what about smoking? How difficult is it for most smokers to quit, or even cut down? And those are recognized addictions...
Over eating carries with it a lot of junk! I grew up in a Family where my Father struggled and my Mother struggled with their weight. My older Sister was heavy and yelled at her whole life for it. Now she is morbidly obese and doesn't want to hear a word from anyone. She's also a born again Christian and ready to go to Heaven! I was skinny throughout my life until I turned 30. Suddenly I had trouble keeping the weight off. I wasn't eating well- a fact. But the flash backs of my Mother screaming at my Sister affect me to this day. Last February I was 40lbs heavier than now and hated myself! I didn't care how I dressed or looked. It was horrible. I still have 10 or so to go for my ideal weight.
There's too much temptation for some of us. Too much food! Every commercial has food! The supermarkets are loaded with non-foods! $6.00 all you can eat Buffets are everywhere!
It's very frightening!
There's too much temptation for some of us. Too much food! Every commercial has food! The supermarkets are loaded with non-foods! $6.00 all you can eat Buffets are everywhere!
It's very frightening!
Weight
What is amazing is that when you abruptly stop eating grains and dairy due to colitis, you stumble upon the reverse of this-- that it is almost impossible to add significant weight without these substances.
I gleaned observations similar to the Wai diet's view because I followed a gluten-free, casein-free diet for 2 decades (I am in my thirties). But still I ate cooked meat, mostly fish..... but interestingly continued eating much fruit because I lived in the tropics and subtropics where fruit was abundant and delicious.
It was generally understood that my body was thin-to-slim because I was ill in some way, and that I could not keep weight on.
But in avoiding wheat and milk suddenly from an early age, I inadvertently broke the 'addiction' to them, and remained slimmer than others. I could not add weight at all; and in fact am only a kilo or so heavier now than when I was 15. Indeed it was my percecption of myself as 'sick' that made me feel I was hopelessly underweight.
When these foods are removed like this, even for reasons that are essentially a misunderstanding, it's a gift, and you never go through the difficulty of the uncontrollable cravings they cause. I became more attracted to raw fish too for wholly circumstantial reasons (work in Japan; rising income that made fine sushi affordable to me) so gradually thngs improved and I started to piece things together.
When there is not the understanding that the Wai diet provides there is just as easily happy accidents like this as there are unhappy consequences for those who despair but overeat. I am glad and thankful in many ways that this diet makes for fewer 'accidents' of either kind and more real understanding and comfort in the body. So again-- thank you for connecting all the dots, Wai authors.
I gleaned observations similar to the Wai diet's view because I followed a gluten-free, casein-free diet for 2 decades (I am in my thirties). But still I ate cooked meat, mostly fish..... but interestingly continued eating much fruit because I lived in the tropics and subtropics where fruit was abundant and delicious.
It was generally understood that my body was thin-to-slim because I was ill in some way, and that I could not keep weight on.
But in avoiding wheat and milk suddenly from an early age, I inadvertently broke the 'addiction' to them, and remained slimmer than others. I could not add weight at all; and in fact am only a kilo or so heavier now than when I was 15. Indeed it was my percecption of myself as 'sick' that made me feel I was hopelessly underweight.
When these foods are removed like this, even for reasons that are essentially a misunderstanding, it's a gift, and you never go through the difficulty of the uncontrollable cravings they cause. I became more attracted to raw fish too for wholly circumstantial reasons (work in Japan; rising income that made fine sushi affordable to me) so gradually thngs improved and I started to piece things together.
When there is not the understanding that the Wai diet provides there is just as easily happy accidents like this as there are unhappy consequences for those who despair but overeat. I am glad and thankful in many ways that this diet makes for fewer 'accidents' of either kind and more real understanding and comfort in the body. So again-- thank you for connecting all the dots, Wai authors.
Oscar wrote:Especially that type of food is very addictive. A processed food addiction isn't recognized as such, even more, obesity has been, and is still, regarded as a sign of prosperity. Heroin addicts also look terrible, and they don't change either. And what about smoking? How difficult is it for most smokers to quit, or even cut down? And those are recognized addictions...
But taking heroin and picking up a cigarette to smoke for the first time are choices aren't they. Everyone knows those things are bad so why do some try those things and some don't?
It's a matter of choice. I don't feel sorry for addicts because it is a choice.
I am a hypocrite in many ways as I have been addicted to things in the past - like posting on the internet or reading the internet for whole days and not going out
Maybe I can understand my kind of addiction but not others because I am not in their shoes.
Maybe food is more addictive to some people and that is their choice of addiction. For others it might be drugs or drinking or gambling. Or the internet.
Philosophically speaking everything in life is a choice, so in that sense you're right. Not all choices are made totally voluntarily, though. The first cigarette is often taken under a lot of peer pressure, like the first beer. Prepared food addiction starts at a far earlier age, often already with bottled milk. This means most people are addicted most of their life. I don't think we can speak of choice when we're talking about kids <5 yrs getting addicted.
I don't think we should underestimate the social pressure concerning food. Not only do many countries have a food tradition, consuming food is being associated with social gatherings and fun occasions. Who wants to be left out?
I don't think we should underestimate the social pressure concerning food. Not only do many countries have a food tradition, consuming food is being associated with social gatherings and fun occasions. Who wants to be left out?
I think quite simply our brains are putty. And we can be influenced. And after that first or second hit the 'wahtever you did' takes control and your will goes out the window.
Here's a stupid story. I grew up a non-smoker. My Mother and Father both smoked and Drank
But for the longest time I was the anti-smoker in the Family. For some stupid reason I wanted to understan their addiction. That simple. Why would my Mother drive out of her way in a panic to buy these things that would choke us with smoke in the car!
Well the rest is history. My reasons for starting got lost in the nicotine put there specifically to hook me. By the time I quit I was smoking three packs of Marlboro a night while working in a Bar!
Thank God I quit. It's just too expensive anyway
Here's a stupid story. I grew up a non-smoker. My Mother and Father both smoked and Drank
But for the longest time I was the anti-smoker in the Family. For some stupid reason I wanted to understan their addiction. That simple. Why would my Mother drive out of her way in a panic to buy these things that would choke us with smoke in the car!Well the rest is history. My reasons for starting got lost in the nicotine put there specifically to hook me. By the time I quit I was smoking three packs of Marlboro a night while working in a Bar!
Thank God I quit. It's just too expensive anyway