Obesity in America
Posts tagged Hunger
Malnutrition and Obesity
Aug 29th
Obesity is caused by several different factors such as overeating, diseases as well as malnutrition. It may come as a surprise to you that someone who is obese is malnourished, but it is very possible.
The reason behind that is that when your body does not have enough nutrients it craves for food. Usually this is junk food as that will give your body the quickest fix. However, this does not provide your body with proper nutrients, and thus you crave for more, and the cycle continues.
What Causes Malnutrition
Malnutrition occurs when your body does not get enough nutrients so that it can function properly. This could be due to reasons such as poverty, or not choosing a proper diet. It could also be the result of a sickness or disease where the body rejects the food or is unable to absorb the nutrients.
There is little that you can do if you are living in poverty and just cannot afford to buy food, or if you are sick, then you may need to take care of your condition first. However, there is a lot that you can do to choosing a proper diet in order to prevent malnutrition.
Choosing a Proper Diet
The foods you should eat are fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts and seeds. And you should eat these foods raw as much as possible, as cooking destroys many essential nutrients.
They say ‘an apple a day, keeps the doctor away’, but you need much more than just an apple a day. Your body was designed to live off of raw and living foods. Studies have shown that plants can provide you with more usable proteins and other nutrients than any other foods such as meat, dairy and eggs. But most people do not even eat as many fresh fruits and vegetables as recommended by the FDA. As a result the majority of people are malnourished.
Hunger
Your body sends a signal that it is hungry when it needs more nutrients, not when it has eliminated all the foods from the last meal. This means that you can still have food in your stomach from your last meal when it sends the signal. Some of the so-called healthiest foods such as animal proteins can leave you in this state where you just keep craving for more and more before your previous meal has been digested.
Raw and living foods will not leave you in this state, as they are digested quickly and eliminated from the body in less than 24 hours. Therefore in order to prevent yourself from overeating you should stick to a raw food diet as much as possible so that your body will not cause you to overeat on junk foods.
Injustice to the Obese
Aug 19th
In Dr. Simeon’s book “Pounds and Inches” he has a section on “Injustice to the obese.” He wrote the book and published it in 1956. Today, in America, we still suffer from the same attitude.
If a person is obese the are considered a person of disdain. They are accused of lacking will power, being greedy, or being too lazy to get off the couch and exercising. The obese person is considered too weak to resist food and to lethargic to exercise. Kristi Alley proclaimed on a recent Oprah show that she was ashamed because she had regained the weight she had lost and said, “I only have myself to blame.”
Perhaps this is true or perhaps something else is going on. Jillian Michaels on her show “Losing it with Jillian” has made us believe that obesity is caused by a low self esteem issue or some tragedy that has happened in our lives that causes us to stop caring about ourselves. She goes into peoples homes and changes their thinking one week. When she returns in six weeks most of the people on the show are thinner and more confident.
Some of what they are saying is definitely true. We MUST care about ourselves in order to keep ourselves healthy, but there are other things going on that cause us to become obese. Dr. Simeon’s said that there were two reasons for us to have the DISEASE of obesity. The first one was because it was inherited. If your parents are obese, chances are you will be too.
Second, a shock to our bodies can cause us to become obese. Dr. Simeon’s observed 6000 Polish Jews as they returned to normal life after life in a prison camp. He observed that 85% of them became obese after just three months.
There is still another reason for obesity. That is the chemicals toxins in our food today. We have nearly 15,000 different chemicals in our food supply. These chemicals are causing damage to the part of our brain that controls hunger and food storage.
