Tag Archives: Obesity

Latin America to tackle dual problems of hunger and obesity

BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Latin American governments have pledged to work toward ending hunger within a decade while tackling an epidemic of rising obesity in the region – itself considered a form of malnutrition.

At a regional meeting of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), government representatives from across Latin American and the Caribbean drew up plans to accelerate cuts in hunger, which has halved in the region in the last 25 years.

At the same time, far more attention needs to be paid to combating obesity, particularly among women, in a region where nearly a quarter of all adults are obese, the FAO said.

“Countries have been very clear: the regional priority is to eradicate hunger by 2025,” Jose Graziano da Silva, head of the FAO said at the meeting in Mexico City which ended on Thursday.

Efforts to combat hunger will focus on Central America’s “dry corridor” running through Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, where millions of people have been affected by a prolonged drought exacerbated by climate change.

“Today, climate change has caused those droughts to be more erratic, prolonged and unpredictable,” Graziano da Silva said.

He said Latin America and the Caribbean can be the first region to achieve two of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals – eradicating hunger and poverty – five years before the proposed target dates of 2030.

Since 1991, the number of hungry people in Latin America and the Caribbean has halved to 34 million from 66 million and the region was the only one that met the U.N. Millennium Development Goals on reducing hunger by 2015, the FAO says.

Aid in the form of conditional cash transfers targeting poor families, pioneered by some of the region’s biggest economies, including Brazil, have meant people have had more money to spend on food.

But changing diets have triggered a rising tide of obesity, with nearly a third of women and four million children now obese in the region.

Programmes aimed at making it easier for family farmers to access credit, insurance, seeds and fertilizers, to encourage them to grow traditional food crops are one way of addressing the problem, Graziano da Silva said.

“The rescue of the region’s traditional crops and food products will allow to promote better diets and face the double burden of malnutrition,” he said.

Initiatives that encourage local governments to buy produce directly from farmers to provide healthy food for school meals, already well-established and hailed as a success in Brazil, will be promoted across Latin America, the FAO said.

The agency said more needs to be done to help subsistence farmers adjust to the impact of climate change, which brings increasing extreme and erratic weather from drought to flooding.

Latin America’s agricultural sector lost $11 billion due to natural disasters between 2003 and 2013, the FAO said.

Efforts must also focus on sustainable fishing by states signing an International Agreement on Port State Measures, which seeks to combat illegal fishing. Three more countries need to ratify the agreement for it to come into effect, the FAO said.

(Reporting by Anastasia Moloney, editing by Ros Russell)

Study Says Obese People Cannot Be Healthy

A new study shows that being obese increases the risk of death calling into question the idea that someone can be obese and still be considered “healthy.”

The study showed people who were obese but did not have a metabolic problem such as high blood pressure or cholesterol problems were still 24% more likely to experience heart problems over a 10-year time frame when compared to people of normal weight.

The researchers from Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto declared “there is no ‘healthy’ pattern of obesity.”

Dr. Holly Wyatt of the University of Colorado said the findings are consistent with the idea that obesity itself is a disease. The American Medical Association first agreed with the idea earlier this year.

Critics accused the study researchers of misinterpreting their results.

Obesity Could Pose Osteoporosis Risk

A new study suggests that obesity is a contributing factor to the frail bone disease osteoporosis.

A Harvard Medical School study on 106 men and women in the Boston area showed hidden fat inside their bones that could lead to fractures. Body scans of the overweight but otherwise healthy patients showed fat hidden in the liver, muscles and bone marrow along with belly, hips or thighs. Continue reading →

Wasted Years

One of the last times my father walked without assistance was when he walked me down the aisle.  He had developed diabetes because of his weight problem, and was now suffering complications from the disease.  Although he was in a lot of pain, Dad was determined to give me away. “Little Girl, this is the proudest moment of my life,” he told me.

In November 1999 Jim and I spent a week with Dad and Lita in Phoenix.  Jim had quizzed the doctor when we took my dad for an appointment that week.  The doctor had said that because of the complications from diabetes, they would likely have to amputate one of Dad’s legs within a year.  “But he’s a strong man,” the doctor said, “and he could live another five years, especially if he would take care of himself.”

On Monday afternoon Jim and I left Phoenix. We were getting in the car to drive to the airport when I turned around and went back in the house to hug Dad again. He held me to his chest and said, “Little Girl, don’t ever forget. Your daddy loves you.” Those were his last words to me.

The next morning Jim and Tammy Sue sat me down and broke the news that my dad had just passed away. Sue knelt down beside me and tenderly held my hand while Jim stood behind me and put his arms around me. They surrounded me with love in that difficult moment.

Peace filled my heart, and I felt that God was saying to me, your dad’s with me here now, and he is happy.

I had needed to know that my dad was in heaven.  God knew dad’s heart. And I believe my dad had finally come to understand the gift of God’s grace.

But he left this world many years before he needed to – because he could not control his eating.  He literally ate himself to death.  His refusal to take better care of himself deprived him and our entire family of many years together.

The wisdom of healthy living is beyond measurable.

Take care of yourself and do what you can to live out your appointed years.  Your family needs you and it is not God’s plan for you to waste the years He has appointed unto you.