Enhancing the quality of life
Alan Stone

 

Alan Stone, Bank executive, 57 years old

“Some people can eat all they want and never get fat. But I have always put weight on easily. A few years ago, at 80 kg, it wasn’t a problem. I had a generally active life! Around 50, I got some cardiac arrhythmia and had to slow down. I put on 40 kg in about two years. Since then, I have drifted between 100 and 125 kg depending on my level of exercise. I know the extra weight puts more stress on my heart.”

Keith Archer, Sports Physiologist, 40 years old

“Lifestyle and genetics are two of many factors influencing whether we get fat easily. When we gain weight, our fat cells get bigger and more fat cells may grow. Alan is technically obese. At risk for cardiovascular disease, but also diabetes and other problems. Once these are established, the damage is done. The only treatment is multiple drug therapy. Only a 5 to 10% weight loss substantially improves metabolic disorders linked to obesity. Alan can still do a lot to help himself. Walking briskly half an hour a day will improve his cardio-respiratory fitness. It even helps to cut the appetite in the short term. For him, prevention is certainly better than cure.

Weight on my mind

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Obesity in brief

In 1980, the number of overweight and obese individuals in the US rose above the number with healthy weight as defined by a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 25 or over. By 2007, one person in three is obese with a BMI of 30 or over. Obesity has become the most common metabolic disorder in the world. The trend is continuing and places an ever greater burden on health, health costs and even productivity.

In the past two decades, the medical community, who earlier looked on obesity as a simple lack of personal self-control when eating, now recognises its psychological and physical consequences. To date, the medical approach has involved attempts to cure it rather than to prevent it. Draconian diets, drugs, jaw-wiring and the baryatric surgery that reduces the size of the stomach or partially bypasses the intestines!

The future has to lie more in prevention. Changing mindsets and lifestyles to achieve the balance of calorie input and output that maintains a desired weight! There are no miracles. Without physical work and a healthy diet, humans will always tend to get fat, with some getting fatter than others!

Genetics and weight balance

The genes we inherit from our parents determine everything about us, including our risk of putting on fat. For our ancestors, getting fat was part of the survival instinct. We still have that instinct today. But the intensely physical life of even 100 years ago has largely been replaced with a sedentary life. The result? Obesity!
 
Weight gain or loss depends on the balance between energy entering the body in our food and drink, and the energy expended in mental activity, respiration, digestion, cardiovascular function, generating heat for body temperature, and physical activity.

Energy Balance

Losing weight means either limiting food intake or increasing energy expenditure. This is not as simple as it seems, as seen in the ever-growing incidence of obesity.
Nestlé Research is looking for ways to re-establish the balance through specific foods, by appetite control, by increasing thermogenesis and regulating fat cells.

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