Weight Loss

Should it be that difficult for people to come in at an ideal weight for themselves, particularly when they're young adults? For that matter, why is it difficult for children to present with ideal weight for their age? That children and young adults find it increasingly problematical to find that balance presages poorly for their ability to cope with what has become a real health problem, for their futures.

Overweight children lead invariably to overweight adults. Lack of energy output to energy input; simple as that. Setting the stage for a body and its organs wearing out long before their 'best before' date. Ensuring that disease and misery will gain an early foothold even before old age sets in.

Where once children were admonished to get out in the fresh air and amuse themselves, play with the neighbourhood children, invent games, be active, do the things that children have always done; exploring their options and their landscapes, and using energy to do it, they now take part in organized sport events. To which they are driven, back and forth.

And when they're home they have other options, generally revolving around a television or a computer screen.

As for food, who bothers to read the list of ingredients that appear on pre-prepared food packages, who has the time, the inclination, the patience? These are, of course, the same at-home food-preparers who haven't the time, the inclination, the patience - and let's add experience to that formula - to prepare basic wholesome foods from scratch. It's the world we now live in.

So people turn to weight-loss supplements and protocols that promise with their use the problem will evaporate just as the unhealthy fat unfurls from too-weighty bodies. In Canada, although weight-loss products, highly visible, ubiquitously-advertised and promising easy success with no strenuous need to discipline oneself, are viewed with dismay by Health Canada.

Health Canada issues warnings that these products can be, and have been found to be, seriously harmful to the health of users, but these warnings are to be found on Health Canada's website. Who, in the general population is motivated to visit that website? Does Health Canada insist that manufacturers of weight-loss products print on their packages warnings about what can go awry? Not likely.

"It's a zoo out there", says Dr. David Lau, president of the research and advocacy group Obesity Canada. "Overweight people are being exploited in many ways and in many ways it's buyers beware. It's obviously a major concern to us as health practitioners." It should be a major concern to consumers who allow themselves to believe the bumph that supplement- and weight-loss product public relations promise as miracle cures to obesity.

The cure to obesity and overweight is simple and practical and fundamentally sound. Do not eat more than your body requires to be healthy. Exercise your body as it is meant to be exercised. There's the cure. Not very romantic, but extremely effective. But, of course, like most simple solutions it requires self-discipline. And that is a component that is missing in the make-up of most people.

Not exactly missing, just permitted to grow fallow, to get rusty, to be ignored, as people indulge themselves in eating non-nutritional junk certain to pile on the unneeded pounds. But there are some very sobering additional facts in this little problem of solving weight-gain.

Products, for example whose active ingredients may lead to serious problems; say for example, a bowel obstruction. Some weight-loss supplements can have additional effects leading to depression, suicidal thoughts and an increased risk of cancer.

Health Canada is aware of these problems, and seeks some assistance from academics and health professionals. Presumably advice that will lead them to tightening up the country's regulatory approach to approving products for the marketplace. On the other hand, there are some products which have not had approval, and they can be purchased in pharmacies, regardless.

Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, with an obesity clinic in Ottawa feels the very real danger to the public is more serious than we want to realize. "Put very bluntly, given that there are not any products right now demonstrably useful in weight management, the fact that there are any claims on any bottles with any (natural health product) licences suggests that the rigour of the criteria involved in evaluating these products is very, very very low."

It does appear to be a producer and consumer free-for-all out there. Should people not be more discerning, more concerned about what they do to harm themselves? First, harming themselves by inactivity matching up with consuming too much garbage passing as food. And then putting the lid on the coffin by using 'miracle' products that will undo the damage they do to their bodies.

Caveat emptor. In all things. It's just sensible to care about your body; you only have one go-around with it, it should be well-cared for and respected. It'll wear longer and encourage a happier and more fulfilling life.