Is Food the 21st Century Plague?
People Eating Themselves to Death 1.7 Billion Overweight Worldwide
Is obesity, or more appropriately, globesity, a new scourge? Are too many fat people causing health risks for the world population? Yes, says WHO.
The 21st Century has a new enemy. Food.
People are weak against its allure. World Health Organisation (WHO) figures indicate that over 1.7 billion people around the world are overweight and 312 million are obese. This poses serious risks to the health of populations worldwide; obese people are susceptible to a range of diseases.
Eating, it seems, has become an enjoyable hobby. In this worldwide eating frenzy, populations are gobbling up anything edible they can put into their mouths, with no conscience for their health. From bushmeat to escargot, chilled bovine urine and fried bullfrog, people are eating themselves to death.
WHO is worried that the world is quickly becoming a population of portly people with big health risks. The culprit: fast foods and sickly snacks. The victims: people of all races and cultures worldwide. Annual competitions including hot dog and hamburger eating, cheese cake and hot wings eating, force competitors to gorge themselves over a period of time in preparation for the staging; obesity at a prize. Fast foods, hydrogenated fats and unhealthy snacks also contribute to the daily increase in global obesity.
Information from WHO states that the epidemic of global obesity, or as they term it, globesity, is increasing at an alarming rate. Obesity is ranked among the top ten killer diseases in the world and people should be more concerned about the health risks they face from cramming unhealthy foods into their bodies. Globesity is a real fat problem with big issues. This global scourge could kill out half the world’s population if people do not curb their rapacious appetites. Should people have cravings for healthy foods as opposed to the junk foods they ingest, the health risks could be reversed and obesity would become a declining risk.
Obesity increases the risk of diseases and such illnesses as cancer of the breast, colon, esophagus and kidney, dyslipidemia, coronary heart disease, stroke, gall bladder disease, arthritis, sleep apnea and respiratory problems. It is also a major contributor to hypertension, commonly known as high blood pressure. Obese and overweight people have a greater risk of suffering from hypertension and stroke.
Every year populations are getting fatter, not in numbers but in size. People seem to be unconcerned about the threat obesity posed to their health in the face of the glamour of food. The average person on the street had many synonyms for obesity: well proportioned, full figured, big boned, thick, plump, but none acknowledged that they were fat or overweight. Some men said they liked their women with meat on their bones. And some women agreed.
The indifference with which people seem to be treating the globesity epidemic could be contributing to its growth. WHO figures indicates that Samoa headed the list of countries with the highest obesity rate with more than half its 214, 265 population listed as obese. In America 64 percent of the population are overweight and 30.5 percent are obese. Canada trails with 50 percent of its populationoverweight and 13.4 percent obese. In Columbia, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru and Mexico over half the populations are overweight and more than 15 percent are obese. The increase in obesity in the Caribbean is also causing concern for WHO. Children also factored among the obese.
