Obesity Case Study

OBESITY AND GENERAL UNHEALTHY LIVING – HOW DO WE FIND A WAY AROUND IT AND SHOULD WE BLAME PEOPLE FOR IT?

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents...........................................................................................................................................2

Introduction...................................................................................................................................................3

Obesity – The BMI and list of diseases associated.........................................................................................3

The Ideas of Healthy Eating...........................................................................................................................4

Problems associated with obesity..................................................................................................................4

Are there treatments?..............................................................................................................................5

What are the fast food supergiants doing to help?.......................................................................................6

McDonalds................................................................................................................................................6

Burger King................................................................................................................................................6

KFC............................................................................................................................................................7

Summary...................................................................................................................................................7

General Advice from professional chefs........................................................................................................9

Laziness........................................................................................................................................................11

Is there perhaps another alternative?.........................................................................................................12

Probiotics................................................................................................................................................12

Synbiotics................................................................................................................................................13

Legalities......................................................................................................................................................13

Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................14

Bibliography.................................................................................................................................................15

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INTRODUCTION

In this case study, I will be discussing the issues of healthy eating in general and who is to blame for the cause of obesity. Alongside the statements and assessing and evaluating the resources at hand, I will give a balanced debate including arguments for and against as well as a conclusion to finalize the case study. The orange coloured numbers indicate source references. (see bibliography)

OBESITY – THE BMI AND LIST OF DISEASES ASSOCIATED

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately 400 million adults in the word are obese – to put that in perspective, that is one in three adults and to give an idea of how severe the degree of obesity is, the body mass index (BMI) is calculated using:

Weight ( lb )×703Height 2(¿)

A person with a BMI of 30 is considered obese with 25 being overweight.

As far as health goes for the obese, the risks are unpromising. Common chronic diseases are:

Cardiovascular disease - conditions related to the circulatory system including heart disease, coronary artery disease (CAD), and coronary heart disease (CHD) as well as peripheral vascular disease. These diseases lead to heart attacks and strokes.

Diabetes (type 2) - another chronic disease associated with unusually high levels of sugar in the blood. Type 2 diabetes is most common amongst the worldwide population. The WHO estimates a double in numbers of people (300 from 150 million) developing type 2 diabetes in 12 years time.

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) such as osteoarthritis and bursitis.

Most common cancers such as breast, colon, oesophagus and gallbladder.

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Other diseases associated with obesity include sleep apnoea, abdominal hernias, varicose veins, gout, gall bladder disease and respiratory problems. (1)

THE IDEAS OF HEALTHY EATING

The point of healthy eating is to maintain a sensible weight and to be free of health risks. Getting into the habit eating healthily also encourages one to exercise regularly maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

The problem today is that lots of people are making the wrong choices when it comes to eating food. Recent results from a statistical gathering in America have shown that 1 in 3 people are obese and Britain is not much different with 1 in 4 being obese.

So the question is who is really to blame for obesity, should we blame ourselves for making the wrong choices?

Are we to blame ourselves for our laziness of not exercising regularly and undertaking recommended diets?

Or should we blame the food industries who are selling us this food to start with?

PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH OBESITY

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One in ten six-year-olds are obese. The total number of obese children has doubled since 1975.

If a child becomes obese their body processes can change. Some of these may be difficult or even impossible to alter in adulthood.

(2)

Fat cells (triglycerides) are developed in the first few years of life. If fat is stored quickly, fat cells are then multiplied quickly. So an obese child can have up to three times as much fat as a normal child. Eventually, fat cells stop multiplying and an adult has a fixed number of cells for the rest of their life.

A problem of obesity for children is the downgrading body image they represent – this very often leads to continuous bullying and as a result leads to depression and perhaps even more overeating.

Obesity is a big health problem for children because they will be at risk to chronic diseases such as diabetes (type 2). Furthermore, children can suffer from sleep apnoea - this is a condition where the normal breathing pattern is disturbed during sleep because the airway collapses and is blocked completely, cutting off the flow of air thus

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As we see from this graph, the children from the UK ages 6-17, each line is proportionately apart meaning that since the time periods of 1905, 1925, 1975 and 1995, the BMI has doubled between those years meaning a predictable, dramatic outcome in the following twenty years to come.

respiration may be stopped up to a minute. This process can happen frequently during the night, leading to cardiovascular disease, memory problems, headaches and fatigue.

ARE THERE TREATMENTS?

Currently, treatments are available for treating obesity but most of these are amphetamine based (stimulant drugs). They increase the amount of noradrenalin (a hormone made in sympathetic nerves and the adrenal gland that makes the heart beat faster and harder) and dopamine hormones in the blood (a chemical that transmits signals between nerve cells), lowering appetite levels. However, they are not suitable for long-term use and side effects can include high blood pressure, anxiety and restlessness.

However, scientists are currently researching new ways to develop weight-loss drugs that cause fewer side effects. Recently, scientists are researching the links in different levels between fat and hunger. Fat produces a hormone called leptin. They designate the degree of hunger to the brain in order to control the storage of body fat. The recent links between fat and hunger is if we have more fat inside our body, we are less hungry and vice versa and since this link is not functional in theory, scientists can find a way to produce a drug which will be able to interfere with this phase.

The problem with using weight-loss drugs is that people have the ability to lose weight but once they have an opportunity to put it back on again without noticing, they do so. So therefore exercising is the most sensible way to lose weight without problems developing.

(3), (4)– information above based on sources

WHAT ARE THE FAST FOOD SUPERGIANTS DOING TO HELP?

Well, help may be at hand because the fast food chains have announced that they will be introducing healthier menus which will include a percentage rise in salads and a reduction in fatty foods.

Firstly, let’s take a look at three most popular fast food chains and study their menu:

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MCDONALDS

In response to the obesity scare, McDonalds launched the healthy food scheme, where they would serve “healthy” foods such as the Chicken Caesar Salad shown below:

Additionally, McDonalds have introduced a fruit bag option a garden side salad option each containing fresh fruit and vegetables - but I believe this to be just words - who knows what has happened to the foods between storage and serving? (5)

BURGER KING

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Burger King has tried to copy some

of McDonald’s ideas but yet they still

have their burgers as the promotional head of the menu.

Their cheeseburgers (in 100g) contain

30g carbohydrates and 13.4g fat! (17)

Tasty warm grilled or crispy chicken with Italian style cheese flakes and garlic and herb croutons.

Did you know?

Our salad counts as 2 portions towards your 5 a day target for fruit and vegetables. Choose balsamic dressing for fewer calories.

(6)

KFC

(7)

SUMMARY

From what I have seen here, each of the menus have barely improved with only McDonalds making a slim effort to try and introduce a salad range but no better because they have not recommended their salad range over the popular burger range. The overall calories loaded on each of their menus are truly staggering. The statement referring to the five a day portion of McDonald’s salad range is very untrustworthy to stick by; for all we know, they have kept their lettuces refrigerated over two months. Burger King and KFC are not any different; in fact worse since a salad range has not been introduced at all.

A statement from Dr Steer concludes the improvement is as low as it can be:

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Burger King has tried to copy some

of McDonald’s ideas but yet they still

have their burgers as the promotional head of the menu.

Their cheeseburgers (in 100g) contain

30g carbohydrates and 13.4g fat! (17)

KFC have not attempted to introduce a salads range since the whole menu has been occupied by chicken.

The Medium fries alone contain 36.4g carbohydrates and 14.8g fat in every 100g serving of fries. (17)

"The decision by McDonald's to introduce healthier foods in its restaurants will not by itself solve the problem of obesity," (8)

Although Dr Steer is not entirely against the fast food companies, he does support them to some extent to find better ways of making money. From what is being said here, McDonalds have only introduced a healthier range in order to be free from the hassle of questions from health care researchers.

So are fast food chains acting like this intentionally?

According to Knowledge Wharton News Weekly, McDonalds have bought 54 million pounds of apples in 2005 making their company the official highest buyer of apples.

It seems they wish to care about the people’s health but they seem to be worried if they erase their whole stock of burgers from their menus.

Statistics of what is currently happening does not seem to help issues either:

Over 30,000 deaths a year are caused by obesity in England alone.

The number of obese children has tripled in 20 years. 10% of six year olds are obese, rising to 17% of 15 year olds

An estimated 10% of America's preschoolers are dangerously overweight, obesity rates for elementary school students have tripled in the last three decades, and 31% of adults in the U.S. are now considered obese (at least 30 pounds overweight). (9)

This is obviously a critical issue concerning health risks for children especially. A problem with the obesity statistics with children is that potentially, parents do not have the time and money to prepare their own food after work so therefore they order fast food.

Additionally, children are possibly not working hard enough in keeping up their fitness regime therefore discouragement and depression and deprivation often leads to engaging compulsive overeating.

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GENERAL ADVICE FROM PROFESSIONAL CHEFS

Professional chefs such as Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver have introduced different ways of improving the recipes of such foods such as chicken legs and French fries, producing them with less fatty substances such as reduction of cooking oil. Eating fresh organic produce is also a factor to improve eating than pre-prepared foods.

One method to help reduce the need for fast food is to eat chips without deep-frying like this recipe from Gordon Ramsay:

Gordon Ramsay makes healthy and tasty chunky chips - without deep-frying

Gordon Ramsay

34 ratings

Recipe by Gordon Ramsay; Tested

Tested

Leave a comment or rate this recipe

Difficulty and serving

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Serves 4

Preparation and cooking times

Prep 15 mins

Cook 20 mins

Vegetarian, Vegan

Method

1. Heat oven to its highest setting, ideally 250C/fan 230C/gas 9. Cut each potato into 1cm-wide slices, then into 1cm-thick sticks. Blanch in a large pan of boiling water for 3 mins, and then drain well. 2. Shake the potatoes out onto a roasting pan, drizzle with oil, ensuring each chip is evenly coated, then season well. Bake for about 15-20 mins, turning the potatoes at least twice, until golden brown and crisp. (10)

As comments have shown, this obviously seems like the much better alternative than the deep oil fried chips most are used to at fast food restaurants. It is more convenient, much healthier way of eating food since you can prepare it in the luxury of your own home without going out and you will enjoy the food more.

One chef in particular, Jamie Oliver, is currently running a “School Dinners” program in which schools would serve much healthier food for students to eat daily and getting rid of the junk food being served in schools today. Jamie Oliver suggests that children must eat more nutritional foods to help our mood, behaviour, health, growth and the ability to concentrate in lessons. At the moment Jamie feels that this nation will be full of overweight underachievers if parents do not “switch on” about their child’s diet or if the government does not pay full attention to funding plans

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and schools must recruit more cookery teachers and put a ban on the junk food children are bringing into school every day. (11)

Obviously, these methods are the major helping hands to the ones that actually care about their health but what about the ones who are not bothered?

LAZINESS

Exercising is one of the key ways in life to lowering the risk of being exposed to diseases since it lowers blood pressure and cholesterol, helps us lose weight, increases stamina and contributes to a feeling of general well being.

The effort applied to improve one’s health is currently appalling because according to a study from Richard Hammond’s “Should I Worry About……Exercise?”, he has recently compiled a list of interviews of people in the UK who buy their exercising equipment, use it once and store it away to collect dust and the result was 100% (as shown in the programme). Additionally, he has found out that in the UK alone, we waste £200 million a year on unused gymnasium memberships. This evidently is a sign of laziness in the population and the majority is unwilling to change their lifestyles. This clearly is a major issue to the population of Britain and America is no different.

Thus Richard Hammond prepared a short program in which a group of students would undertake a regular fitness regime in which they would take 10,000 steps everyday to monitor their heart rates. And after the first day it was obvious that the students had poor fitness levels after showing signs of exhaustion. This could noticeably be because of their habits of eating unhealthily or not participating in a regular sport in a school week.

But as progress developed, the students felt less fatigue after getting used to the program after four days and Hammond proved that every little exercise can help reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease and stroke. (12)

So far, the factors of obesity are many:

o Overeating – especially fast foods.

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o The unawareness of parents about their child’s health.

o The government and their inattentive actions to correct the lifestyles of the public.

o The laziness of the human population to not exercise vigorously.

All factors are viable and are carefully considered but perhaps there is a much more scientific and trouble-free method of reducing obesity…

IS THERE PERHAPS ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE?

PROBIOTICS

Scientists have discovered ways of reducing one’s risks to diseases such as introducing “Probiotic bacteria” which is a dietary supplement – the goal of the probiotic is to re-establish a natural healthy balance of intestinal microorganisms in the body.

Scientists have used the term “Friendly bacteria” to avoid any scare and to assure that this is no harmful process:

Jeremy Nicholson of Imperial College London and his colleagues fed strains of "probiotic" Lactobacillus to mice whose gut microbes had been replaced by those that usually live in the human gut. These mice had different bile acids from the norm - favouring enzymes that reduce the amount of fat digested. "More fat is available for the microbes, and you then 'poo' the microbes out," says Nicholson.

The changes may only reduce fat absorption by a little, but this could have an impact on obesity if sustained over several years.

This essentially is a biological alternative with these bacteria such as Lactobacillus Acidophilus and Bifidus being inserted in foods. Also nobody would notice the difference in taste which is all very promising. Some probiotics naturally occur in foods such as yoghurts, cereals and fermented milk. However one of the criticisms arises about

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whether the probiotic can survive stomach acid and bile to reach the intestines undamaged. (13), (14)

SYNBIOTICS

A way to increase healthy bacterial gut flora (microorganisms that normally live in the digestive tracts) is by increasing the amount of prebiotics (indigestible carbohydrates that invigorate the growth and activity of probiotics of the flora) in the diet. These supplements are emulsified to create synbiotics.

The main reason for using a symbiotic instead of a probiotic is that without its prebiotic food, it does not subsist well in the digestive system. To increase its capability, not only on the shelf but also in the colon (large intestine), the product must allow for much greater attachment and growth rate of the healthy bacteria to reduce the growth of harmful bacteria. (15)

LEGALITIES

The most important ramification is the legality of the products because so many are being introduced and claim to be able to cure many things but they are not legal due to the FDA’s (Food and Drug Administration) rules:

Is it legal to market a dietary supplement product as a treatment or cure for a specific disease or condition?

No, a product sold as a dietary supplement and promoted on its label or in labeling* as a treatment, prevention or cure for a specific disease or condition would be considered an

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unapproved and thus illegal drug. To maintain the product's status as a dietary supplement, the label and labeling must be consistent with the provisions in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994.*Labeling refers to the label as well as accompanying material that is used by a manufacturer to promote and market a specific product. (16)

Dietary supplements are permitted to make structure allegations. These are claims that the supplement can help a function of the human body, for example, the hormone melatonin helps establish normal sleep patterns etc. The FDA must be informed of these claims within 30 days of their first use, and there is an obligation that these claims be verified.

CONCLUSION

After all of the evidence I have seen, it is a clear point that humans are partly the problem with obesity since we are not making the correct choices. A major factor that is a cause of obesity if the amount of laziness we are encumbered with because we have no desire to exercise since most assume that we are not going to be happy with exercising and that eating more will give us that sensational value. So therefore attitude and efforts are the key factors that affect one’s behaviour towards making the right choice in life. Due to the current statistics by scientists, it is believed that since obesity will be triple the amount in the following years, the amount of deaths will be profound due to the cause of overeating and laziness.

After studying my evaluation, it is clear now that the fast food companies are ultimately trying to find ways to increase their financial profits by introducing the new menus. Dietary supplements can be an easy alternative but they can be dangerous if ingestion instructions are not followed properly.

Furthermore, I can strictly say that blame does not fall on anyone else more than ourselves thus giving us the privilege to get on with our lives and to make things right by eating healthily and exercising regularly which to most of us is the ultimate goal. Fast

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food companies are the ones blamed for obesity inevitably but it is us who make the choices therefore we are the ones bringing obesity towards us.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. [Online] http://www.who.int/topics/obesity/en/.

2. [Online] http://www.healthlit.org/featuredArticles/images/bmi.gif.

3. [Online] http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/obesity/children.shtml.

4. [Online] http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/obesity/treatment.shtml.

5. [Online] http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/pages/eatsmart/saladsplus.html.

6. [Online] http://www.burgerking.co.uk/food/index.aspx.

7. [Online] http://www.kfc.co.uk/index/menu.php.

8. [Online] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3501512.stm.

9. [Online] http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1149.

10. [Online] http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2515/chunky-oven-chips.jsp.

11. [Online] http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/J/jamies_school_dinners/campaign/index.html.

12. [Online] http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/shouldiworryabout/exercise.shtml.

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13. [Online] http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg19726395.000-probiotic-bacteria-could-keep-us-slim.html.

14. [Online] http://nccam.nih.gov/news/newsletter/2006_summer/bacteria.htm.

15. [Online] http://www.innvista.com/health/nutrition/biotics/synbiot.htm.

16. [Online] http://www.myelitis.org/workshop2002/Overview%20of%20Dietary%20Supplements.pdf.

17. [Online] http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/calories/calorie_counter/fast_food.htm.

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