Articles
Why it's so hard to live healthily (and to lose weight too)
If you're finding it exceedingly difficult to shed those extra kilos that you, or maybe your children, are carrying around, don't be too quick to put all the blame on yourself, or on to them!
The truth is that there are forces at work in modern society that thwart each individual's attempt to reach, and then maintain a healthy weight, and in turn, to lead a healthy lifestyle.
According to the book, 'The Big Fat Conspiracy', 'many aspects of our environment conspire to make us over indulge in some things and under indulge in others'.
The book goes on to say that 'it is no coincidence that this is to the benefit of many powerful interests – the food, marketing, advertising, media and car industries, to name just a few'.
And most tellingly, Melissa Sweet, the author of 'The Big Fat Conspiracy' points out that those powerful interests are often 'not to the benefit of our health'.
Consider just some examples of those 'less than favourable' interests as cited in the book:
• Society's love affair with the car, which means that both adults and children regularly miss out on opportunities to walk. It's now regarded as being easier, safer, and simply more convenient to just jump into a car, even for short trips, say to the local shops.
• The continual advertising of junk foods to young children. And the associated pressure that puts on parents to purchase that sort of unhealthy food for their kids.
• People are now regularly eating larger portions of food, both at home and when they eat out.
• An associated problem is the 'super treat' phenomenon whereby, for instance, chocolate biscuits are no longer just 'plain old' chocolate biscuits but chocolate biscuits that are made up of double coats of chocolate, or have caramel centres in them, or are covered in nuts, and so on. The 'super treat' phenomenon also applies to lots of other convenience foods as well, with a common example being pizzas – people now buy pizzas with extra thick crusts, or crusts filled with cheese, or pizzas that are covered with large amounts of cheese, or pizzas that have half a dozen fat toppings all piled high on the one pizza!
• The availability of a multitude of labour saving devices – from remote control devices for changing TV channels through to ones that automatically open our garage doors – all of which make us less active and contribute to weight gain, albeit in small amounts.
• More choices of 'fat' food than ever before in our supermarkets. Larger supermarkets now stock literally thousands and thousands of different sorts of foods for us to choose from. But unfortunately, a large percentage of those foods offer dubious, or any, health benefits whatsoever.
• People are now busier than ever before which means that there is less time to plan for, and then prepare nutritional meals for themselves and their family.
When confronted with these and other powerful vested interests, it should come as no real surprise to learn that it is becoming increasingly difficult to live a healthy lifestyle. And to halt the epidemic of weight problems that are lot of people are now facing.
That, in fact, was the primary motivation for Melissa Sweet to write her book 'The Big Fat Conspiracy'.
As she says in the opening pages of her book, her major concern is the 'growing numbers of children and young people who are overweight'.
The contents of the 'The Big Fat Conspiracy' have been divided into three major parts.
In the first part of the book, a thorough investigation is undertaken of the forces at play in society that 'affect children's health'. As a result of that investigation, Sweet reports that it is 'clear that weight gain is an almost inevitable consequence of modern society, and that conscious action is needed to prevent it'.
The next section of the book looks at 'what you and your family can do' to counter these forces.
The third and final part of the book, titled 'the power of many', explores 'how communities can work together to make a powerful difference to people's lives'.
'The Big Fat Conspiracy' is a superbly researched book. But most importantly, it is an easy book to read.
By the time that you have finished reading it, you will be armed with an enormous amount of useful and practical information that you can use to make healthy changes in the way that you and your family live.
Melissa Sweet's wish is that her book 'inspires you to take some steps to protect yourself and your family from the big fat conspiracy of modern life'.
I believe that Sweet has achieved that wish with her book, and I have no reservations in strongly urging you to read it.
You and your family will benefit immensely from what it has to say.
For more information about 'The Big Fat Conspiracy', or to purchase a copy, go to the relevant section of the 'ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Shop Online' site. To do so now, CLICK HERE