"Super Obese" Us
Oops, we're not just overweight, a little on the heavy side, tubby, fat, or lardish any longer. We're more, far more than that. All right, not all of us. Some of us are just a tad over what we should weigh. For our health and well-being. Let alone our personal sense of satisfaction, our self-esteem.
So we need to drop a few pounds. Not yet, not in the winter, for it's cold out there and that few extra pounds we packed on after Christmas can stay in place for another month or so, until Spring comes around the corner.
And then, zap! We'll drop that extra poundage like you wouldn't believe. Don't need it any more. We can look to be svelte and well-appointed, shedding all that bulky outerwear with the newly-unneeded fat. No prob-lem!
Except, for some of us, it is. And, on the evidence, has been for quite some time. Those of us who find it ever so difficult to exert a little bit of self-discipline over our lifelong engagement with food. Because, let's face it, there's nothing quite like it.
Eating is fun, taste-bud rewarding, and leaves us in a state of satietated contentment. And then, we get glum. The guilt kind of settles in and nestles around our head, delving into our minds and we think: damn! did it again.
It really is hard to stop when you're enjoying yourself so much. And who thinks of the consequences in the happy throes of consuming all the good things that modern culinary arts can offer?
Um, along with the stuff we dredge up from the supermarket shelves; those comestibles that your mother, your grandmother would never recognize. Convenience foods. Super-processed stuff. High fat, high sugar, high salt content.
And it tastes good, some of it, anyway. Some of it doesn't, but it gets eaten anyway, because the fat, the sugar and the salt content convince us it's all right, even if we can't quite recognize what we're eating.
Resulting in not just obese, we're now being informed by worried doctors - themselves no slackers in putting on weight - but super-obese. Body mass indexes in the stratosphere. Really.
A BMI of 30 is considered getting on obese. Obese as is morbidly overweight. Morbidly as in life-threatening. Hard to remember we have the option of making intelligent choices to comport ourselves to ensure what we do to ourselves enhances our lives.
But holy cow! Now we're talking about severe obesity, with BMIs of 40 and more. But wait; there's more. What's becoming increasingly common now in doctors' offices and emergency rooms of hospitals is people in distress, with BMIs in the range of 80 and 90.
How's that possible? "We're seeing an increasing number of super obese patients in Canada and this is true across the entire country." I didn't say that, although I do have a neighbour whom I very much like, who handily fits that category.
That statement came out of the concerned mouth of an obesity researcher, professor of medicine at the University of Calgary, and president of Obesity Canada, Dr. David Lau. I daresay I hope he's not including himself in that super-obese category, as representative of the horror that people can visit upon themselves.
Think of what carrying around all that weight does to your internal organs? Not to mention your joints, your legs, knees, ankles, tendons. We're talking ordinary, normal people somehow getting carried away with enthusiasm for all those edible goodies at our fingertips; people weighing in at 400 - 450 pounds.
"The heavier they get, the less exercise they can do, the bigger they get, the more depressed they get, the more they eat." Is that a vicious cycle, or is it not?
Then they're uncommonly susceptible to diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, high blood fat and cholesterol, sleep apnea, fatty liver, hiatus hernia, gallbladder disease and joint pain. C'mon, that doesn't sound like life, it sounds like living hell. Why, let alone how, would anyone do this to themselves?
Some of this propensity to weight gain is the result of genetic inheritance, some a result of lifestyle choices. We inherit genes, we don't choose them, but we do choose to live the way we do. Is this the new normal?
So we need to drop a few pounds. Not yet, not in the winter, for it's cold out there and that few extra pounds we packed on after Christmas can stay in place for another month or so, until Spring comes around the corner.
And then, zap! We'll drop that extra poundage like you wouldn't believe. Don't need it any more. We can look to be svelte and well-appointed, shedding all that bulky outerwear with the newly-unneeded fat. No prob-lem!
Except, for some of us, it is. And, on the evidence, has been for quite some time. Those of us who find it ever so difficult to exert a little bit of self-discipline over our lifelong engagement with food. Because, let's face it, there's nothing quite like it.
Eating is fun, taste-bud rewarding, and leaves us in a state of satietated contentment. And then, we get glum. The guilt kind of settles in and nestles around our head, delving into our minds and we think: damn! did it again.
It really is hard to stop when you're enjoying yourself so much. And who thinks of the consequences in the happy throes of consuming all the good things that modern culinary arts can offer?
Um, along with the stuff we dredge up from the supermarket shelves; those comestibles that your mother, your grandmother would never recognize. Convenience foods. Super-processed stuff. High fat, high sugar, high salt content.
And it tastes good, some of it, anyway. Some of it doesn't, but it gets eaten anyway, because the fat, the sugar and the salt content convince us it's all right, even if we can't quite recognize what we're eating.
Resulting in not just obese, we're now being informed by worried doctors - themselves no slackers in putting on weight - but super-obese. Body mass indexes in the stratosphere. Really.
A BMI of 30 is considered getting on obese. Obese as is morbidly overweight. Morbidly as in life-threatening. Hard to remember we have the option of making intelligent choices to comport ourselves to ensure what we do to ourselves enhances our lives.
But holy cow! Now we're talking about severe obesity, with BMIs of 40 and more. But wait; there's more. What's becoming increasingly common now in doctors' offices and emergency rooms of hospitals is people in distress, with BMIs in the range of 80 and 90.
How's that possible? "We're seeing an increasing number of super obese patients in Canada and this is true across the entire country." I didn't say that, although I do have a neighbour whom I very much like, who handily fits that category.
That statement came out of the concerned mouth of an obesity researcher, professor of medicine at the University of Calgary, and president of Obesity Canada, Dr. David Lau. I daresay I hope he's not including himself in that super-obese category, as representative of the horror that people can visit upon themselves.
Think of what carrying around all that weight does to your internal organs? Not to mention your joints, your legs, knees, ankles, tendons. We're talking ordinary, normal people somehow getting carried away with enthusiasm for all those edible goodies at our fingertips; people weighing in at 400 - 450 pounds.
"The heavier they get, the less exercise they can do, the bigger they get, the more depressed they get, the more they eat." Is that a vicious cycle, or is it not?
Then they're uncommonly susceptible to diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, high blood fat and cholesterol, sleep apnea, fatty liver, hiatus hernia, gallbladder disease and joint pain. C'mon, that doesn't sound like life, it sounds like living hell. Why, let alone how, would anyone do this to themselves?
Some of this propensity to weight gain is the result of genetic inheritance, some a result of lifestyle choices. We inherit genes, we don't choose them, but we do choose to live the way we do. Is this the new normal?
Labels: Health, Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ 6:06 PM
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