This story can happen anywhere in the world, but it struck me as I was reading a local newspaper at the Houston airport waiting for my host to drive me to College Station. A report read, “40% of Texans are overweight or obese.” It was a mild shock, to say the least. I shared it with my host. He said, “You have been in the U.S. for nearly six months in two visits. Are you noticing it only today?”
At College Station, my hostess, who practises internal medicine, took over the conversation. “Some of my patients are overweight and obese. Is there a specific yoga for weight reduction,” she asked. “Yes, it is known as mind control. Ask them to skip one meal,” I said.
“That is not possible. For two dollars, they get a plateful and they do not want to waste food.”
“So they decide to waste the food in their stomachs!”
Back in Chennai, I started observing people who tip the scale beyond the recommended body mass index. My heart skips a beat whenever I sight anyone overweight or obese. If the person is younger, my heart skips two beats. When it became too frequent, I stopped taking it to heart.
Simple mantra
All such people and parents of younger ones especially know the simple mantra, “Reduce intake and increase expenditure of energy.” Those who know this mantra, however, underestimate intake and overestimate expenditure.
In an in-company training programme for middle-level managers in their forties who tend to put on weight, the simple method of working out the calorie intake and expenditure was explained by the company medical officer. The participants were also told to take the message to colleagues and family members.
There was a move in U.K. restaurants to charge overweight and obese customers double for every dish. Soon there was a protest, and restaurant owners and the proponents of this move had to eat their words.
Now to come to the meat of the story, obese and overweight persons are under two charges.
One charge is levelled by their circulatory and skeletal systems. The heart is a zero-leak pump working non-stop throughout one’s life, something no pump designer has ever been able to design. For every extra kilogram more than the optimum weight, the heart struggles to pump blood. The joints from ankle upwards and the muscles have elastic limits beyond which they will moan, croak and crack.
The second charge is on behalf of the undernourished or malnourished members of society. They have less food or nutrients available for them at affordable costs.
Of the two charges, the first is more serious. The charges are to be heard in one’s own court in the brain. Now let the overweight and obese persons be their own judges. If charges are proved, they write their own sentence.
lakshmibashyam@yahoo.com
