Don's report archive
Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)
Everything You Never Knew You Wanted To Know About Fat
Chinese Proverb: "There is no feast that does not come to an end."
Everybody is talking about fat, but how much do we know about fat itself? For instance, are you aware that the average size person (5 feet four, 154 pounds for women; 5:10 and 180 for men) has 40 billion fat cells! Imagine that--40 billion. And how many people are average in a country with 2/3 of the population obese or overweight? Eighty billion fat cells might be more like it!Â
Fat is not caused by low metabolism. Low metabolism is a condition of eating too much and exercising too little, according to a recent report by the CDCP. (Source: National Geographic, August 2004.) The obesity rate is twice what it was three decades ago, in good part because adult women consume 335 more calories daily than they did in 1971 (men have upped their daily intake by 168 calories daily). If you wondered, average caloric consumption for women and men is 1877 and 2618 calories, respectively.
A few basics you might want to keep in mind about fat:
- The First Law of Fat is "anything you eat beyond your immediate need for energy, from avocados to ziti, turns to fat" (Lawrence Cheskin, Director of the Johns Hopkins Weight Loss Center.) The Second Law is the one that causes the most problems: "The line between being in and out of energy balance is slight." This means a few extra calories can create a huge increase in fat storage.Â
- Losing fat by eating the wrong things is not always a good idea. You might, as Dean Ornish noted in reference to the Atkins Diet, be "mortgaging your health."Â
- Evolution has created genes that are programmed to resist starvation by converting food into fat and holding on to it. This adaptation helped our ancestors survive when calories were in scarce supply; today it's killing people.Â
- The drive to overeat has strong biological roots; too little exercise over the years creates powerful urges to consume more than is needed. Scientists consider this part of an "intricate biochemical and neurological circuitry" gone awry. The real mystery is how anyone is NOT fat, given the modern environment wherein food is "tasty, cheap and plentiful." (Jeff Friedman, Rockerfeller University.) Kelly Brownell of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders says, "we live in a toxic environment," referring to such pollutants as the 10,000 commercials a year the average child in the US watchs. (Figure is based on a study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education in 2001.)
Most people are doomed. They will become fat and die before their time of obesity-related diseases. The choice is stark: Exercise your arse off or get fat, look like hell and die badly, sooner than you have to.Â
If you choose the latter, marry your strenuous fitness regimen to a joyful, satisfying wellness lifestyle. It's just a richer way to be alive, as well as a much trimmer alternative to the woeful American way.
In either case, always look on the bright side of life. Be well.
Domain: physicalSubdomain: nutrition
Search other reports in the Don Ardell report archive.
Read about our
Featured Products
my shopping cart
Read Don's latest report or search his report archive to find commentary on what you're interested in.
 |
This site complies with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information: verify here. |
