Senior News
April, 2001
Vol. 20. No.  4

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

Osteoporosis exercise:Strength training for seniors storms the county

ASA Conference: Ideas gleaned, connections made

Remembering Spirit: Celebrate 20 years of Senior News

20 Years of Senior News: Dreaming the dream that started us

Life in Prime Time

Are You Obese?: Empty calories continue the cycle

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Are you obese?
Empty calories continue the cycle
by Bill Sturgeon

Are you obese? Divide your weight in pounds by the square of your height in inches, and multiply the result by 703. If this number, your Body Mass Index, exceeds 30, you are obese.

If so, you should visit your doctor. You are at risk of contracting type 2 diabetes. This disease, often symptom-free in its early stages, can lead to unpleasant things like hypertension, heart disease, kidney disorders, blindness, amputations and death. Your choices are to lose weight or to have an expensive relationship with your doctor.

People need high quality nutrition

Your body is composed of more than 100 different types of cells. Each day, billions of them wear out and die. Obviously they need to be replaced if we are to continue to thrive. Replacement cells and the material needed to recreate them come from the food you eat. If it lacks the needed raw materials to do this, you have a health problem.

People need about 40 known food components in our diets every day. These components are called trace minerals, vitamins and essential amino acids. Is the food you eat giving you what your body needs?

My belief is that people are obese because the foods they eat contain "empty calories," glaring examples of which are white sugar and alcohol. Empty calories do not provide the building blocks required to enable new cells to be constructed-so we have full stomachs and starving cells. This unfulfilled need for nutrition keeps us shoveling the food in to get what isn't there. This inadequate nutrition, combined with excessive food calories, combined with a sedentary lifestyle, are critical factors in developing obesity.

Michael Klapper, M.D., writes, in Vegan Nutrition: Pure and Simple: "People who have just eaten a fatty meal…would be shocked to see a sample tube of their own blood. Instead of the clear, clean, yellow serum floating above the dark red clot, they would see a thick white cap of greasy fats, bobbing opaquely above the serum and adhering to the sides of the tube. This phenomenon is called lipemia, and it is a familiar and predictable sight to the blood bank technologist working on the after-lunch shift."

This fat is circulating in the blood while waiting in line to be metabolized by the liver. While doing so, it coats the walls of every vein and artery in your body.

Food preparation robs nutrients

Cooking and canning denatures our food and depletes it of essential nutrients. Much of our food is grown in soil that itself has been depleted of mineral content so the vegetables produced are nutrient deficient. "Conventional" farmers typically replenish their soil with fertilizer containing only three ingredients: nitrogen, phosphorus and potash. Essential nutrients, such as zinc, are not replaced in the soil. We probably need nutritional supplements.

In general, we should buy only organically grown foods and avoid processed foods if we want to detoxify our bodies. Especially important is to avoid the synthetic sweetener, Aspartame, sold as NutraSweet or Equal. It is not only toxic (puts methyl alcohol into the system and causes brain cancer in lab animals) but does not work well to reduce caloric intake. When that sweetness hits the taste buds, a signal goes to our brains that food is coming down. This induces the body to begin the digestive process. With no food accompanying the sweetness, we then feel hungry. The result is often a raid on the fridge-so, in the end, we'll intake the calories anyway in spite of our efforts to cut back. We should drink fruit juice or water instead of soda pop.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine advises: "The best weight control program is a high-complex-carbohydrate, low-fat, vegetarian diet complemented by regular exercise. This is the best choice for a healthier, longer, happier life. Walking is popular because it requires no special equipment and can be done anywhere at anytime."

Bill Sturgeon of Petrolia is a medical instruments engineer and medical writer. His e-mail is sturgeon@asis.com.