Weight Gain Epidemic - A Global View

Weight issues are usually discussed as an individual problem. The reality is that obesity is an expanding global problem. Because over eating causes many diseases, this global problem is often described as a disease epidemic that spreads like an infectious disease.  An intelligent approach to each individual who is overweight and not well  is to recognize that this one person is a member of a group whose members all participate in creating dysfunction and disease. Obesity can be understood as a family problem and then a societal problem. Remedies do involve changes in the behavior of individuals but these change depend on changes in the way the community operates.

The world health organization develops global perspectives on human diseases. The following summary was developed from the World Health Report:    “The world is living dangerously – either because it has little choice, which is often the case among the poor, or because it is making the wrong choices in terms of its consumption and its activities. Indeed, there is evidence that these risk factors are part of a “risk transition” showing marked changes in patterns of living in many parts of the world. In many developing countries rapid increases in body weight are being recorded, particularly among children, adolescents and young adults. Obesity rates have risen threefold or even more in some parts of North America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, Australasia and China since 1980.

"Changes in food processing and production and in agricultural and trade policies have affected the daily diet of hundreds of millions of people…Eating fruit and vegetables can help prevent cardiovascular diseases and some cancers, low intake of them as part of diet is responsible for almost three million deaths a year from those diseases. At the same time, changes in living and working patterns have led to less physical activity and less physical labor.

“Physical inactivity causes about 15% of some cancers, diabetes and heart disease.” The report found that there are 170 million children in poor countries who are underweight and over three million of them die each year as a result. There are more than one billion adults worldwide who are overweight and at least 300 million who are clinically obese. Among these, about half a million people in North America and Western Europe die from obesity-related diseases every year.

Kaplan compared obesity in adults to a cholera epidemic that requires community action ... prevented childhood obesity is required to have a healthy adult population.  (Katan MB. Weight-loss diets for the prevention and treatment of obesity. N Engl J Med 2009 Feb 26; 360:923.)

Weight and disease management with the Alpha Nutrition Program. You can start by  studying our books or ordering a Rescue Starter Pack that includes two books, the Alpha Nutrition Program plus Eating and Weight Management,  plus one 500 Gram jar of Alpha ENF

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Eating and Weight Management

Alpha Nutrition Program

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