“One should change his habit by time before it becomes addiction” – Anonymous. A very wise saying indeed!
Eating habits are different among people and it is characterised by many things such as geographical location, budget, time, extra curricular activities, life style, likes and dislikes, eating culture, media, health ministry and etc. We just can’t blame a single person or object for bad eating habits or obesity that we find today.
In today’s modern world when life style is very comfortable for a person and hardships are not significant anymore, due to that fact many diseases and problems are growing in society.
If some where people are starving to death then some where in the world people are carrying weight of more than 10 bodies. Apparently, United State has gained recognition in criteria of obesity. They are believed to be over weight and obese people.
The obesity finds today among children and teenagers respectively. It is due to children are developing bad eating habits. They can’t cook their own food and have not enough awareness about healthy and unhealthy food. Their parents are working hard to meet both ends and they neglect their children and give them money and show them way to McDonalds or any fast food restaurant.
They tend to sit in front of TV and PC for hours and do not socialize and participate in active sports. Canteens in schools are also playing their part by providing unhealthy cheap food to students and cashing the bright future of this world.
After them teenagers and middle age people are biggest victims. A recent survey about eating habits and healthy life among middle age people show that the people of Denmark are the healthiest people in EU and Sweden ranked 2nd and Switzerland ranked 3rd. Although, the unhealthiest people in EU are from Spain, UK and Germany.
Some fat or over weight people don’t see obesity as a problem and for me it is very surprising. An educated person is well aware of all these diseases and disadvantages of obesity but still he doesn’t do anything about it.
It may because of he has accepted himself the way he is or perhaps no one ever teased him or makes him realize that he needs to reduce weight. Taking Taxes as an example if people don’t see obesity as a problem there then it may not be false to say because where everyone has a same size there being 100 KG or 200 KG doesn’t matter.
The question rises that how can good and healthy eating habits be promoted. It is something that can’t take place in one day by sorting out one thing. First of all a person needs to figure out his bad habits and try to cut them. It also depends on budget and the resources that give you access to healthy food.
Eating culture and geographical location also matter a lot. European countries are mostly colder comparing to South Asian countries. Therefore, if you consume Chilli and spices in India for instance it is because you have also normal temperature of 26 to 30 degrees which helps you to sweat and drink plenty of water which keeps the body system clean and digestive system active.
However if you consume same kind of food in Denmark then you will be over weight as comparing life in general is easy in Denmark than in India and you don’t have hot weather here so the diet should be different for people living in DK. People living in cold countries should consume vegetables, fruits, fish, eggs, low fat products and oil instead of butter.
I am a social adviser and nutrition counsellor and I give advice to people regarding eating habits and weight loss etc and I have seen many cases where teenagers want to reduce weight and they do exercise but they don’t lose weight, and the factor behind this is that they don’t change their eating habits.
They still eat chips, chocolates, junk food, drink coke instead of milk and eat food cooked in high cholesterol oil. When you have to lose weight then hunger strikes never help. It depends on many different things such as age, gender, height, kind of work you do, exercise, access to healthy food and eating habits etc.
For a college going female student who doesn’t do much or any physical activity it is advised that she should include vegetables, fruits, salad, juices, rye bread, pulses, water, low fat milk, low fat products, fish and cook food in oil and 30 minutes running/ exercise everyday and you will lose 2 – 5 KG per week.
One should reduce or completely avoid butter, mayonnaise, sugar, white bread and pork. However, when a girl is growing up she is more concerned to her figure and weight than a boy because boy’s body shapes up with muscles and girl’s body shapes up with fat around hips and belly.
For some extent gender also plays an important role. In our society girls are taught to cook not boys. Therefore, mostly men don’t have cooking skills and in order to keep family healthy woman needs to be more aware of products.
According to me, Low literacy or illiteracy also interferes with a person’s shopping ability. If you can’t read labels you can’t make the best choices. Watching T.V. enters the picture here, since the most recognizable products, though not necessarily the best ones will be those most easily identified in a store.
Modern science proves that food nutrition plays an important role in daily life causalities. Oily food blocks arteries and becomes cause of heart attacks. But this doesn’t mean that one should exclude oily things from his diet. One needs to eat balance diet.
Mineral, pure or boiled water is good for health which keeps digestive system good and prevent against food poisoning. Buy food that contains more proteins and low fat and carbohydrates.
When emphasis a lot on low fat then it means to consume low fat, it doesn’t mean to reduce fat from your diet at all. As fat is an important factor in formation of human body.
Disease like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart conditions, food poisoning, headaches and appendix can be prevented if only we eat balance diet and adopt healthy eating habits. Not only obesity leads to unhealthy life style but it can also be a cause of death.
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