Weight, Diet, and Exercise - the Key to Keeping Fit - Essay Example

WEIGHT, DIET, AND EXERCISE (Journalistic essay on success) of (affiliation) Submitted: Introduction People today live hectic lives as they go about their studies, finding a job, and pursuing a good professional career, and hopefully, later on have a nice house and raise a nice family. The prevailing wisdom is to take things for granted and take them as they are. An example is the use of modern electronic consumer gadgets like cellular phone, smart phone, notebooks, and tablets. Just a few years ago, people were using telegrams, telex, and facsimile (fax) machines. Sending important messages had now been superseded by instant messaging software and also of course text messaging which sends messages almost in real time (a lag of just a few seconds). It is indeed incredible how modern scientific and technological advances had made life today so much easier and more convenient. Almost everything is now instant and life is a breeze. The general attitude of taking things for granted extends to almost everything in modern lifestyle such as the food that people eat. Everything is very convenient like having the fast-food choices currently available such as hamburgers, fries, hotcakes, and hotdogs. For a more filling type of meals, there are also available in supermarkets pre-cooked packaged complete meals like ready-toe-eat food that requires a few minutes of re-heating in a microwave oven. This attitude of accepting things as they are meant few people question the wisdom of their actions. A modern lifestyle of ease and convenience has instead created a new kind of problem which is the problem of obesity. People getting obese or overweight (as defined by their body mass index or BMI) are getting younger and younger; even children today are obese compared to their counterparts just a few generations ago such that obesity has been declared an epidemic. In this paper, I will discuss and argue the many myths, superstitions, wrong beliefs, and of course, the wrong information people have about their own health, good diet, and proper exercise. Discussion Every person wants to live a long, healthy, and happy life. People in ancient times used to live to a ripe old age almost unimaginable today. These people had led active lifestyles that in many instances were characterized by hard work, meaning physical or manual labor, and eating a healthy diet composed of organic fruits and vegetables with a few pieces of lean meat and fishes. Early civilizations were geared towards healthy living in the sense that people were always on the move looking for food during the so-called hunter-gatherer stage of human existence. It was easier to gather fruits, nuts, tubers, and vegetables than to catch prey and cook it or eating it raw. The caveman could be said to be healthier physiologically than todays modern male. This state of things anchored on a nomadic lifestyle that is based mostly on nature took a gradual, downward turn when Man developed agriculture. The ability to raise food on a consistent basis made food available almost year round and assured the food supply subject only to calamities like a typhoon, flood, earthquake, or a pestilence such as locusts or the diseases that afflict livestock such as chickens, ducks, pigs, cows, goats, or cattle. Advent of agriculture made humans sedentary in permanent settlements as there was no pressing need to search for food. The Industrial Revolution which started in seventeenth-century England probably has the most profound impact on human history and lifestyle. This event changed everything to such an extent that it still continues today in all the things people do. An example in the dramatic shift of how people live was the invention of the gasoline engine and with the development of modern modes of transportation, in particular, the automobile. Modern society was transformed from that of a life of constant struggle to a life of relative ease, convenience, and less physical exertion. I. Ideal body weight – the most common measure of an ideal body weight is the BMI or body mass index. It is a fairly simple and straightforward method which is derived by dividing a persons weight by the square of the persons height. A BMI of between 25-30 makes any person overweight while a BMI in excess of 30 makes that person obese. The BMI was devised by the Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet as a rough rule of thumb to make determination of the body weight easy to remember by health practitioners even without the availability of a weight scale. Obesity is a medical condition that can progress to serious illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure (hypertension), heart attack, stroke (or a brain attack), osteoarthritis (low bone density), obstructive sleep apnea (snoring), and also suspected as cause of certain types of cancer. a. Obesity as a badge of social status - the Western medical experts and public health policy makers are alarmed at the rate obesity is going up nowadays even among young children. But quite interestingly, in some cultures such as of the Pacific Islanders, being fat or obese has significant social implications. The children of their ruling families are encouraged to eat as much as they can so they will grow fat and be identified as a royal member. This was also the case of many tribes in Africa some centuries earlier, where women and girls of some regions were force-fed to become plump as obesity is a badge of wealth and beauty. It was a fashionable trend of the royal courts for kings to have fat wives (Dianabuja, 2010, para. 1). b. Anorexia – on the other hand, there are people who do not need to lose weight but in their minds they are too fat and need to lose weight some more to the extent of endangering their own health. It is a complex eating disorder characterized by a refusal to maintain the right body weight, an intense or irrational fear of gaining weight, and a grossly distorted self-image of body (Smith & Segal, 2014, para. 3) due to low self-esteem. The medical term is anorexia nervosa and the problem is more psychological than biological or physiological in nature as people with this eating disorder are always in denial they have a problem by hiding it from their own relatives or close family members. These people have deep emotional problems who see extreme weight loss as a way to compensate their negative self-image either by starvation or excessive exercise. This is chiefly characterized by a symptom of extremely thin appearance (Mayo Clinic, 2014, para.2). Medical researchers have tried using hormones to induce a patient with anorexia nervosa to start eating again using by employing feedback mechanisms (Sodersten & Bergh, 2014, p. 750). II. Having a proper diet – implementing a good diet to attain the ideal body weight is the task of a certified nutritionist. A healthy diet complemented by appropriate physical exercise is a very good way to lose weight and maintain that ideal body weight. Modern lifestyles included an unhealthy diet of fast-food items rich in fats, cholesterol, sugar, and other processed ingredients. The food industry is partly to blame for this unbalanced diets that people today consume in larger quantities and more often because the industry provides foods that are cheap and easy to prepare. However, consumers are also at fault since they choose to avail of these types of foods when the choice is actually theirs to make in the first place. An example would be buying organic fruits or vegetables but these items cost more on the pocket bu t the rewards are great in the long term. a. Eating potatoes and still lose weight – a recent study jointly conducted by the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of California (Davis) showed how eating the right kind of foods can help in weight reduction. This study demonstrated the role of calorie reduction and glycemic index in attaining the desired weight loss targets and showed reduction in calories is the key to success in any diet and weight plan (Randolph et al., 2014, para. 2). Potatoes were used in the study to prove the wrong notion of most people that potatoes cause weight gains. b. Thinking really hard? - one interesting way to lose weight, as one study suggested, is to engage in strenuous mental activities or exercises that require the brain to do more and focus. Although the physiology of feeling tired after a rigorous physical exercise is much different from a feeling of mental fatigue, some medical researchers are thinking doing mental calisthenics is a good way to burn more calories as the brain consumes large amounts of energy compared to its size (the brain is only 2% of total body weight but uses up to 20% of the resting metabolic rate or RMR) which is quite disproportionate to other vital body organs (Jabr, 2012, para. 3). A person who is desperately trying to lose weight could probably try this approach if it works or not. c. A sin tax on sugary and soft drinks – this is a proposal similar to the sin tax imposed on tobacco products that will hopefully discourage people from availing of these unhealthy items that do not contribute at all to good healthy eating habits. It had been on the table for a long time but the sugar and soft drinks industries are against it, as expected, and have mounted a strong campaign not to have any legislation passed that will impose a sin tax on their products. There is a similar proposal to apply sin taxes on junk food which health experts consider as one of worst contributors to the current obesity epidemic. The logic of this proposed tax is to reflect the true social costs of ill health caused by eating junk food that in turn increase the government medical costs especially with the approved expansion of health care plan coverage (Goldman et al., 2009, para. 4). The whole idea is to affect consumer behavior patterns by raising junk food prices. d. Obesity as an epidemic as defined by WHO – nearly two-thirds of adult Americans are now considered either overweight or obese based on their respective BMI measurements and it is getting worse (Marks, 2004, para. 1). The health care implications are alarming in terms of costs that total to an estimated $147 billion annually (in 2008 dollars) that is significantly even higher than tobacco-related medical costs. The medical cost of an obese person is about $1,429 higher than that of any person with normal weight (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014, para. 3) and some population segments are more obese than others. Middle-aged adults in the 40-59 age group have higher obesity rates compared to younger adults (20-39 age range) or to older adults (in the 60 years old or above age group). In general, people with higher education are less obese than those with lower educational attainment, perhaps due to having more access to health information on the dangers of obesity, ways to prevent it, and how to lose weight. The World Health Organization (WHO) took some time before declaring obesity as an epidemic. III. Getting the right physical exercise – health experts and fitness buffs like to point out how living a healthy life is to have a proper balance of everything we do that is based on moderation, training, a mindset open to change, discipline, and strong mental commitment. There are no shortcuts when it comes to physical training. A myth of physical exercise is it is only good for certain age groups which is not totally correct. Except for the very young and the very old (especially those with lifestyles diseases already), it is best they will consult a health expert or better still, their family physician, before embarking on a physical training program. Basically, anybody with no health conditions can start a physical exercise program anytime. a. The lungs are not affected – surprisingly enough, medical health physiologists point out almost all organ systems in the body are positively affected by a regular moderate exercise regimen. This includes the circulatory, endocrine, immune, skeletal, muscle, bone, ligament, and gastro-intestinal systems including the immune system. There is no get-fit-quick scheme for this physical exercise aspect which is why people need to have patience and integrate it to their lives. b. There is no such thing as an exercise pill – a few years ago, people were amazed at unusual claims by the Salk Institute in Biological Studies based in La Jolla, California when they announced having developed an exercise pill that people can take without actually exercising. It was a claim people who are overweight or obese found hard to resist and many believed it so that they could now get fit without the pain in an effortless shortcut to fitness (Hutchinson, 2011, p. 2) but health experts say there is no such thing as an instant fitness phenomenon. Any person is to go through a physical exercise routine before he gets the benefits of exercise, period. One does not take some magic pill that will hopefully mimic the physiological effects of an exercise. Conclusion The golden, elusive key to keeping fit is to have a balanced life that aims to maintain at all times all throughout the various life stages of a person an ideal body weight as used in BMI. It is imperative to have a normal BMI using a combination of physical exercise, a balanced diet, an optimistic, positive attitude towards life in general, the ability to have mental discipline to be able to sustain any exercise regimen, and an open mind to integrate an exercise program to ones life, in fact, as part of the activities of daily living (ADL) such that an exercise is never a burden. There are no shortcuts or magic pills that can substitute for a good physical exercise routine. The exercise pill from the Salk Institute was a hoax but sounded tantalizing at first because it was an era when astronauts were sent to outer space to land on the moon. Astronauts used a form of concentrated meals contained in a pill because they could not cook a proper meal in space and so the idea of a magic exercise pill came from the same concept. However, any physical exercise regimen or routine has to be gradual, consistent, and ultimately, sustainable. References Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2014, September 9). Adult obesity facts: Obesity is common, serious, and costly. Retrieved November 1, 2014 from http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html Dianabuja (2010, October 16). Africa, the Middle East, Agriculture, History, and Culture: Obesity a sign of wealth in 19th century Africa and now. Retrieved November 1, 2014 from http://dianabuja.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/obesity-a-sign-of-wealth-in-19th-century-africa-now/ Goldman, D., Lakdawalla, D., & Zheng, Y. H. (2009, June). Food prices and the dynamics of body weight. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 15096. Retrieved November 2, 2014 from http://www.economist.com/node/14120903 Hutchinson, A. (2011). Which comes first, cardio or weights? Fitness myths, training truths, and other surprising discoveries from the science of exercise. New York, NY, USA: Harper Collins Publishers. Jabr, F. (2012, July 18). Does thinking really hard burn more calories? Scientific American. Retrieved November 1, 2014 from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thinking-hard-calories/ Marks, J. B. (2004, January). Obesity in America: Its getting worse. Clinical Diabetes Journals. Retrieved November 2, 2014 from http://clinical.diabetesjournals.org/content/22/1/1.full Mayo Clinic (2014). Diseases and conditions: Anorexia nervosa symptoms. Retrieved November 1, 2014 from http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/anorexia/basics/symptoms/con-20033002 Randolph, J. M., Edirisinghe, I., Masoni, A. M., Kappagoda, T., & Burton-Freeman, B. (2014, October 22). Potatoes, glycemic index, and weight loss in free-living individuals: Practical implications. Journal of the American College of Nutrition. Retrieved November 2, 2014 from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141022123350.htm Smith, M. & Segal, J. (2014). Anorexia nervosa: Signs, symptoms, causes, and treatment. Retrieved November 2, 2014 from http://www.helpguide.org/articles/eating-disorders/anorexia-nervosa.htm Sodersten, P. & Bergh, C. (2014, October). Recovering from anorexia nervosa by machine. The Journal of Neuroendocrinology, 26(10), 750-751. Read More