Thursday 12th June 2008 - People DON'T die from being TOO FAT !!

No one dies from being too fat.
Why would I say that? Because it's true!

However, I am worried (and angry) about the apathy and general lack of self care that relates to health. No one really seems to be able to hear the alarm bells ringing about obesity and I think that this is as much a problem as the issue itself. Is it because the problem is growing so bad that the media talks about the "dangers" nearly every other day but we never see any of the terrible outcomes?

For example - have you ever seen someone in real life "explode" from eating too much or being too fat - NO, of course not.

In fact it became a famous comedy skit in the movie "Meaning of Life" by Monty Python that has been seen by many millions of people all over the world and that dialogue is now a common response when someone actually feels too full from food. I remember laughing when I first saw it as being so ridiculous that it was humorous. You see in the skit a man exploded from eating one final "wafer thin crisp" after gourging himself on too much food.

Now this physically is impossible, I'm pretty sure but if anyone has seen this in real life let me know. You see our bodies just keep getting fatter and fatter to the point where we can't move through physical impossibility. There was a show on television the other night that had a man who weighed 500kgs or about 1000lbs. He couldn't move and probably hadn't been able to move for quite some time.

So how does he continue to be able to live or get food?
Also does watching something like this lull us into a false sense of security or comfort us that we really aren't that bad. Well there is always someone worse off so I'm doing okay.

You don't see someone that is as fat as that man being at such an extreme risk of health issues from just eating fast food as their sole nutritional intake. But let me add that pretty much anything they eat (or drink as remember a lot of poor nutrient calories come from drinks) will be stored by the body as they have not only now a very low metabolism but they can't physically move to burn any calories.

Now we get to the real issues surrounding obesity. You see obesity is not classed as a disease. It is ALL the associated illnesses that result from the breakdown of the Human ECO System and how the body presents this such as Diabetes, Hypertension, Coronary Heart problems which by the way are ALL classed as diseases. They have support from Governments in medical subsidies, they have help from care based Associations who are providing advice, they have help from pharmaceutical companies who help to manage the illnesses.

And being classed a disease, allows the Pharmaceutical companies to garnish billions of dollars or profit with medications designed to reduce or lessen the impact. You see no company that is in the business of disease management wants YOU to be cured. It would be business suicide.

Why fix the problems when you can have a patient who constantly needs to pay for your medicines to "improve the quality of their lives" and who constantly is a "paying customer".
Check to see what the profits are in disease management. It will not surprize you at all I am sure but it may put shed some light on how much of an impact we could have on global health if we started to improve the actual health of people and specifically our young children.

So why isn't the health and fitness (wellness) community capitalizing on this multi-billion dollar business by promoting activity programs to assist and most times reduce the requirement for medications and an additional result will be to definitely help improve the quality of someone's life? Oh yeah it doesn't come in a pill bottle and requires some actual physical effort for a result.

Here is the next trillion dollar health product that I am going to create. "Fitness in a bottle".

Here is how it works. When you join a fitness facility you get a small bottle with 30 tablets in it. You take one after you have been physically active for one hour everyday and I guarantee that you will lose more bodyfat than ever before.

What is in the tablet ... well it is actually a secret ingredient but I will share it with you because we are friends. (Ssshhhh ... it is really a very small dose/shot of glucose that you take after the workout to stimulate the blood stream with energy after working out for the hour ... please don't tell anyone as I plan to make trillions of dollars from this ....)

Now back to reality.
To validate this concern about obesity I did some research and found at there are very few cases of death from obesity alone. Yes there are millions and millions of cases of death from obesity "related" diseases that present themselves like heart attacks from coronary conditions, diabetes complications like blindness and loss of limbs, blood pressure and stress illnesses and the list goes on. I haven't even touched on Cancer related conditions and there is no doubt that this is ONE concern that motivates people into action.

You see I have been passionately involved in the business of "health and fitness" all my life or as it's now evolved to be known - "health and wellness". This has happened because marketers and sales people in advertising have realized that fitness is becoming a less popular trend and harder to sell but as people are now looking for lifestyle related solutions that include being less active or fitness related, the wellness brands are starting to explode onto the market.

So as I see it here is the danger !

Drink Driving does NOT KILL.
Think of the small impact that the "Drink driving" campaigns have had on reducing the road tolls all over the world. Now don't get me wrong, I am all for people NOT drink driving but really it is up to the individual to personally decided because with drink driving death only occurs when you crash or you run someone over. So if you don't crash or run someone over is it really that dangerous? Yes, the health risk actually happens long before you get behind the wheel!

So are they really effective campaigns in stopping this from happening, and as it's mostly the young, but equally the stupid from driving while drunk. I guess that this depends on how someone assesses if they are drunk and how capable they think they are to make that assessment.

Smoking does NOT KILL.
Now to that other less effective yet no less important media campaign for "Smoking". Really is there are person alive that hasn't seen an advert where it has been scientifically proven that the damage smoking causes really is not a myth and actually is harmful.

So why don't people stop? Is it because we see it everywhere and build up a tolerance to this. I think it is because most people believe that Smoking doesn't kill you but Cancer does. So if I don't get cancer then smoking really isn't bad. Are you crazy? What do you think is damaging the cells that present themselves as cancer and where did they get the "internal pollution" from that turned them cancerous?

You see the cell is your personal home. Damage it through either drinking too much, smoking at all, or getting fat to the point of being unhealthy and YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN DEATH.

Scary isn't it. I wanted to draw some parrallels here to the pitfalls around the obesity campaigns and why people are switching off and I hope that it as resonated with YOU.

Don't switch off.

ACT NOW and ensure that your Human ECO System is "protected" by your actions and not just by my words. It's YOUR body and it's YOUR Life !!