As I understand it, there was a time thousands of years ago, when man was in a constant battle to conserve energy, mainly because calories were scarce and we knew it. We would struggle to hunt and gather the resources we needed to survive, food was uncommon, and the body became very good at storing any extra energy we could get down us as FAT. The body knew that we could use the stored fat when we could not find any food and it would keep us alive. It was a life saving mechanism. We are therefore, genetically predisposed to holding onto fat because of our– ‘there might not be food available today’ – biological nature. A wonderful safety mechanism. But, an obsolete one.
But here’s the snag, our environments have changed dramatically and in so doing, so has the food supply. There are very few places in the western world were there is a serious food shortage. The antithesis is actually true. There is an abundance of food energy available to us. Our problem is not obtaining food, but rather choosing which foods to eat. The sexy burger covered in calorie ridden cheese and mayonnaise, stacked tall with all the extras or the prawn salad with sunflower seeds and a light dressing? Here we find the modern dichotomy. One word sums it up. That word is CHOICE.
I do not believe for a moment that we find ourselves obese by accident. We are the result of things we put in our mouths day in day out. We are fat because we have chosen to be. We have consumed too many calories often by eating too many calorie moderate foods or worse still too many calorie dense foods. Once to often do we find ourselves in the queue for the easy option, quickly prepared, full of flavour generated by sugar, fat and salt. This is what’s killing us. No longing the bear in woods hunting the hunter, but the mindset of our generation that settles for easy, cheap, quick and tasty.
A well known motivation speaker once said, that the difference between where you are and where you want to be is what you do. And never has a truer word been spoken.
More tomorrow.
Chris Thomas 