MORE YOUNG PEOPLE ARE DYING FROM FOOD RELATED ILLNESSES

BY: FITZ-GEORGE RATTRAY

Are we eating ourselves to death?

A 20-year analysis published in 2019 had revealed that one in five people who die every year, dies as the direct result of what they continue to eat. They die simply and directly from poor food choices. These numbers include medically related deaths and deaths as a result of old age, vehicular accidents, homicides and more.

Nevertheless, there is one binding truth, for most people, whether younger, older, slimmer and fatter. They don’t care how much pain, sickness, mutilation or death their eating causes them or their children.

There is indeed great public interest in weight loss among the overweight, even among the slightly overweight.   However, the great majority of this interest is vanity related, leaving them susceptible to easy, extreme and quick fad diets.  Seeking the type of temporary convenience and itching to “finish dieting” when they have the body, which they perceive as more attractive.  Naturally because their mindset towards food, knowledge, behavior patterns and habituations have not changed, they soon regain all or more of the weight lost.

Many of us have heard much of what is now proven to improve quality of life, reduce the chances of illness suffering and early death:

• Reduced calories
• Majority vegetables, fruits, berries, seeds, legumes, nuts, spices and fiber based diet
• Minimized simple carbs, unhealthy fats, red meats and processed foods
• Reduced alcohol consumption
• Elimination of tobacco consumption
• Reduced stress
• Increased stress management and meditation
• Increased social relationships and hobbies
• Improved time management
• Increased physical and mental health awareness and support
• Increased wellness fact-based knowledge
• Sleep management
• Varied regular and consistent exercises and movements for strength, health and lifestyle reinforcement

BUT NEVERTHELESS

Most people still do not care. We still glam to cheap low quality convenient food options, defending these choices with our very lives, suffering from food involved ailments such as:

• Stress
• Depression
• Acne
• Anxiety
• Dementia
• Fatigue
• Swellings and inflammation
• Back pains
• Joint pains
• Regular illnesses
• Chronic illnesses
• Headaches
• Gastrointestinal ailments
• Heart disease
• Liver disease
• Kidney disease
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Cancers
• Blindness
• Strokes, and more

And of course, early death.

MORE YOUNG PEOPLE ARE DYING FROM FOOD RELATED ILLNESSES

All these illnesses are being observed in increasing numbers among the young in populations, slim or overweight. 

By age group, the highest relative death rate increase from 2010 to 2017 is among people 25 to 34 years old.  This is a jump of 29 percent.

People born in 1990 have twice the risk of colon cancer compared to a person born in 1950, and 4 times the risk of rectal cancer!

Of course, weight still matters. A 2018 study published in JAMA Oncology found that women in their 20s to 40s who were overweight had twice the risk of developing colorectal cancer before age 50.

Nevertheless, parents continue to feed their children foods which are commonly known to be damaging, often in the name of convenience. 

Sadly, I cannot count the number of people who have told me that they are struggling with their life, improving weight loss diet because they have and must prepare the unhealthier foods in their household for their children. Think about that for a moment.

EVEN AFTER A HEALTH THREAT PEOPLE REFUSE TO CHANGE

We know that secondary prevention and lifestyle changes after life threatening events or diagnosis can save lives, however a recent peer reviewed study (Published in final edited form as:

Health Rep. 2012 Dec; 23(4): 49–53.) revealed that “people rarely made positive changes in lifestyle behaviors after they had been diagnosed with a chronic condition”

Another research paper showed “90 Percent of People with Heart Failure Don’t Make Lifestyle Changes”. The four doctor recommended changes examined in this study only included:

1. Monitoring weight changes
2. Exercising more
3. Regulating fluids
4. Reducing salt intake

nothing more!

YOU CAN CHANGE

It is a fact that people are willing to die to eat what they want; that people don’t functionally care about the sickness. Most people fail to appreciate that it’s not just fighting fat.  In fact, many people would love to figure out how to eat and not get fat while they eat their way to death, spending their hard-earned money on damaging foods in deadly portions – chewing a path to their own suffering as they add to the manufacturers and suppliers wealth.

While it is true that you are affected by, marketing, availability, stressors, triggers, social pressures, work demands, cultural influences, inherited primitive behavioral patterns, cravings and habituations, there comes a point where the better minded version of you must look objectively at the painful future; which the misguided choices you are making every day, will bring to you and your loved ones.  

Hopefully this will help you become aware of the need for change. Don’t waste time in contemplation.  Change takes time, it is a process, but it can only happen if you start. Do you want to change?