Obesity Epidemic Goes Global: One-in-Three Is Now Overweight or
Obese
June 11, 2014
Story at-a-glance
-
An estimated 110,000 Americans die as a result of
obesity each year. Worldwide, obesity claims an
estimated 3.4 million lives annually
-
One-third of all cancers are directly related to excess
weight
-
The number of overweight or obese people around the
world has almost tripled, from 857 million in 1980 to
2.1 billion in 2013
-
Of the more than 180 countries analyzed, the US carries
the heaviest obesity burden, followed by China and India
-
Obesity is usually the result of inappropriate lifestyle
choices, such as eating too much processed foods (high
in carbs and low in healthy fats), and not fasting
enough
By Dr. Mercola
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
estimates that 110,000 Americans die as a result of
obesity each year, and that one-third of all cancers are
directly related to excess weight.
Data collected from over 60,000 Canadians also shows that
obesity now leads to more doctor visits than
smoking. One in four Americans is also
pre-diabetic or diabetic, and heart disease and cancer—both
of which are associated with obesity—top the mortality charts.
According to Christopher Murray,1
one of the authors of a comprehensive new analysis2,
3 published in The Lancet,4
all this excess body weight causes an estimated 3.4 million
deaths worldwide each year. As noted by Bloomberg:5
"The estimated number of overweight or obese people
almost tripled from 857 million in 1980 [to 2.1 billion
in 2013]... Worldwide prevalence of obesity and
overweight rose by 28 percent for adults and by 47 percent
for children from 1980 and 2013...
'The rise in obesity among children is especially
troubling in so many low- and middle-income countries,'
Marie Ng, the study's lead author and an assistant professor
of Global Health at the University of Washington, said in a
statement.
'We know that there are severe downstream health
effects from childhood obesity, including cardiovascular
disease, diabetes, and many cancers.'"
Obesity Is Now a Global Health Threat
It's easy to think of obesity as a problem affecting only the
wealthiest of nations, but recent research shows that even
developing countries are increasingly plagued by expanding
waistlines.
The featured analysis discovered that more than half of the
world's obese people congregate in 10 countries: United States,
China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan,
and Indonesia. The analysis also reveals that:
- One-third of the global population (about 2.1 billion
people) is now overweight or obese, 671 million of which
fall into the obese category
- Worldwide, rates of obesity among children have risen by
50 percent between 1980 and 2013
- In Tonga, more than half of all adults, both men and
women, are obese
- In Kuwait, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia,
Libya, Qatar, and Samoa, more than half of all women are
obese
- Of the more than 180 countries analyzed, the US carries
the heaviest obesity burden, followed by China and India.
Obese Americans account for about 13 percent of the world's
obese people, while China and India together account for 15
percent of the total
Non-starchy, carb-rich, highly processed foods, along with
being in continuous feast mode, are primary drivers of these
statistics. Wherever a highly processed food diet becomes the
norm, obesity inevitably follows.
Americans are notorious for eating a primarily processed
diet, so it's not surprising that we have the highest obesity
rate in the world. What's worse, the rate of "extreme obesity"
in the US (defined here as people with a BMI above 40) has risen
by 350 percent over the past few years alone!
It's also worth noting that it's the poorest
Americans have the
highest obesity rate, another indication that there's
something in cheap processed foods that promote weight gain.
Sadly, lower food prices apply primarily to packaged processed
foods.
And if you base your diet on these foods, you are virtually
guaranteed to experience weight gain, as they are
loaded with sugar, fructose, and grains, all of which will pack
on unnecessary pounds and make it more difficult to get excess
weight off.
Skyrocketing Obesity Is the Result of Misleading Health
Information
Previous estimates have suggested that more than one billion
people may be categorized as obese by 2030. According to the
featured analysis, we're already at 671 million. Clearly,
something must be done to curb this trend. But what's really at
the heart of this global problem? As stated by Murray:6
"Countries need to be looking at how they communicate
effectively both what people eat and how much they should be
eating. Because what we've been doing up until now isn't
working. Strategies to tackle obesity need to address both
physical activity, total caloric intake and the different
foods we eat."
Indeed, most of the conventional information about what makes
for a healthy diet is flat out wrong, and is actually
causing or significantly contributing to obesity. The US
government also focuses the lion's share of agricultural
subsidies on crops used as processed food ingredients, primarily
corn and soy, instead of health promoting whole foods like
fruits and vegetables.
If You Follow These Conventional Health Guidelines, You Place
Your Health at Risk...
It's one thing for corporations to put out
misleading junk food ads. Honesty is not in the
self-interest of the processed junk food and beverage industry.
It's another when the government falls in line with for-profit
deception and becomes a propagator of corporate propaganda
drivel. And this is exactly what has happened. Conventional
advice that is driving public health in the wrong
direction includes the following, but this is just a tiny
sampling of the pervasive misleading information on weight and
obesity disseminated by our government agencies.
A more complete list of conventional
health myths could easily fill several books. The
unfortunate truth is that the very industries that profit from
these lies are the ones funding most of the research,
infiltrating our regulatory agencies, and
bribing our political officials to support their
financially-driven agenda through any number of legal, and at
times not so legal, means.
- "Cut calories to lose weight": Contrary
to popular belief, calories are NOT created equal, and will
not have identical effects your weight or health.
Counting calories, therefore, will not help you lose
weight if you're still consuming the wrong kind of
calories while cutting out the good ones. When it comes to
calories, it is far more important to look at the source
of the calories than counting them.
Dr. Robert Lustig, an expert on the metabolic fate of
sugar, explains that fructose in particular is "isocaloric
but not isometabolic."
This means you can have the same amount of calories from
fructose or glucose,
fructose and protein, or fructose and fat, but the
metabolic effect will be entirely different despite the
identical calorie count. One of the key dietary changes that
you need to implement if you want to lose weight is to swap
out carbohydrates (sugars, fructose, and grains) for larger
amounts of vegetables and healthy fat, and to be moderate in
your protein consumption.
The reason why this is so important is because starchy
carbs, like potatoes and rice, sugar and grains, but
fructose in particular) elevate your insulin and
leptin levels. These two hormones play key roles in
weight management and fat regulation, and chronically
elevated levels ultimately lead to insulin resistance and
fat accumulation. Fats and proteins affect insulin and
leptin to a far lesser degree.
How much fructose is too much? If you are obese or have
insulin resistance, diabetes, high blood pressure, high
cholesterol, or heart disease, you'd be wise to limit your
fructose to 15 grams per day or less from all sources until
your insulin level is normalized. After that, proceed with
caution. For all others, my standard recommendation is to
limit your fructose consumption to a max of 25 grams per
day.
- "Choose 'diet' foods to lose weight":
Substances like
Splenda (sucralose) and Equal or Nutrasweet (aspartame)
may have zero calories, but your body isn't fooled. When it
gets a "sweet" taste, it expects calories to follow, and
when this doesn't occur it leads to distortions in your
biochemistry that may actually lead to weight gain. If
you're overweight, you probably need probiotics (beneficial
bacteria), NOT artificial sweeteners. In many respects,
fermented foods would be a more accurate description of a
true "diet food."
About 80 percent of your immune system resides in your
gut, and research shows that probiotics 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.
- "Avoid saturated fat to protect your heart
health": The myth that saturated fat causes heart
disease has undoubtedly harmed an incalculable number of
lives over the past several decades, even though it all
began as little more than a scientifically unsupported
marketing strategy for
Crisco cooking oil. Most people are insulin and leptin
resistant and actually would benefit from anywhere between
50-85 percent of their daily calories in the form of healthy
fats such as organic, pastured eggs,
avocados,
coconut oil, real butter and grass-fed beef in order to
optimize their health.
Increasing your healthy fat consumption is particularly
important once you decrease grain carbs. Many believe you
need grain carbs for fuel, but fat is actually a far better
energy source. Saturated fat is the preferred fuel for your
heart, and it's also used as a source of fuel during high
levels of activity. Fats also slow down absorption of your
meal so that you feel full longer, which helps prevent
snacking.
- "Reduce your cholesterol to extremely low
levels":
Cholesterol
is actually NOT the major culprit in heart disease or any
disease, and the guidelines that dictate what number your
cholesterol levels should be to keep you "healthy" are
fraught with conflict of interest -- and have never been
proven to be good for your health.
Junk Food Marketing Tactics Rival Those of Big Tobacco
Another major factor in the obesity epidemic is that kids are
a primary target for processed food and beverage manufacturers.
They know that lifelong taste preferences are set early on in
life, and children are inundated with junk food marketing; at
home, in public places, and at school. Food advertising is far
from innocent when it comes to creating a global obesity
pandemic. According to recent research into food addiction,
"highly processed foods can lead to classic signs of addiction
like loss of control, tolerance, and withdrawal."7
What other industry is infamous for aggressively marketing a
highly addictive product to kids?
Big Tobacco... And just like the tobacco industry, the
processed food industry is fighting tooth and nail to divert
responsibility away from their products when questions are
raised about the root causes of obesity and food addiction.
Stone-wall as they might though, the processed food industry has
created an entire field of science devoted to creating flavors
and textures that people will crave, and junk food
addiction is very real indeed.
Kids do not become obese because they're too lazy and eat too
much. They become obese because they get addicted to processed
foods that create metabolic havoc. Isn't it time to hold the
processed food industry accountable for what they're selling,
and how and to whom they direct their marketing? UN Special
Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, thinks so.
Speaking at the opening of the 2014 World Health Organization's
annual summit, he warned that "obesity is a bigger global health
threat than tobacco use." He's calling for nations to join
forces to place stricter regulations on unhealthy foods:
"Just as the world came together to regulate the
risks of tobacco, a bold framework convention on adequate
diets must now be agreed," he said.8
Exercise and Intermittently Fasting—Two Important Allies in Your
Efforts to Be Lean
Besides addressing what you eat, you would also be
wise to consider when you eat. A growing body of
evidence shows that
intermittent fasting is really effective for losing weight
and improving your insulin and leptin receptor sensitivity. This
makes sense when you consider that our ancestors didn't have
access to food 24/7. Your body is indeed "programmed" to undergo
"famine" from time to time.
One of the mechanisms that makes intermittent fasting so
effective for weight loss is the fact that it helps your body to
shift from burning sugar to burning fat as its primary fuel. It
also 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. To learn more about the specific how tos of
intermittent fasting, please see my previous article, "What
the Science Says about Intermittent Fasting."
Another important factor for weight loss is exercising
efficiently, which means including high-intensity activities
into your rotation. High-intensity interval-type training also
boosts
HGH production, which is essential for optimal health,
fitness, and weight management. So along with core-strengthening
exercises, strength training, and stretching, I highly recommend
doing
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—two to three times per week.
Together, intermittent fasting, high intensity exercise, and
eating a healthy diet will turn you into an effective
fat-burning machine. Again, in terms of diet, you'll want
the bulk of your meals to be vegetables and healthy fat, a
moderate amount of organic, grass-fed or pastured protein, and
very low amounts of carbohydrates
(sugar/fructose/grains).
Copyright 1997- 2014 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
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