Growing epidemic of obesity

Today, we enjoy a very good quality of life, in terms of comforts compared to what about grandparents and even parents enjoyed. Technology has changed everything and there is no doubt, we lead a much sedentary lifestyle. But if the lifestyle is sedentary, logically, the food should also be healthy and in smaller portions but the exact opposite has happened. We eat more unhealthy food and have little or no activity to burn these high calories. And whom does the blame lay on – fair and square on the economy!

The working paper released by US  has shown that economic factors like cost of food and type of jobs can affect weight gain. According to this paper, the top five factors linked with gain in Body Mass Index (BMI) are - proliferation of supercenters and warehouse clubs was the biggest contributor, followed by more restaurants, rising price of cigarettes, fewer blue-collar jobs which involves hard labour and availability of more food stamps, which makes getting food cheaper and easier.

And what keeps off the gaining pounds? Easy access to fitness centers, higher fuel prices and unemployment. The US does need to curb growing obesity as the adult obesity rate in the U.S. jumped from 13% in 1960 to about 35% by 2012. Actually, we in India too, not just in metro cities but in Tier II and III cities also see more and more ‘healthy’ people than before. And if we do not pay serious attention to this growing problem of waist line, like USA or maybe worse than USA, obesity will one day eat away India.