obesogenic
I first encountered the newly manufactured word obesogenic while reading Greta Christina's weblog and I thought it was a truly grand word indeed. Obesogenic (obese with an -ogenic tacked on) refers to conditions that lead people to become excessively fat. More about that can be learned from the CDC which is the Center For Disease Control and if you don't think that obesity is a disease then you should definitely skip on over there and do some investigating. There you will find a wealth of information.
In case you missed the CDC link above, you can click HERE.
Diet and weight related illnesses have become the number one preventable cause of death in North America.
I have read that statement and heard it spoken time after time. I don't know if it is true or not, but I suspect it is. And that is truly frightening. I say it is frightening because it indicates that people (millions of individuals) are being systematically hoodwinked into becoming obese.
Some things I have read recently that I did not know:
Rice inhibits the activity of Vitamin A; wheat has a chemical that impedes the action of zinc and can lead to stunted growth; maize is deficient in essential amino acids and contains phytates, which prevent the absorption of iron.
And:
Out of the thirty thousand types of edible plants thought to exist on Earth, just eleven - corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye, and oats - account for 93 percent of all that humans eat, and every one of them was first cultivated by our Neolithic ancestors.
Wow! Talk about resistance to change.
Good Grief! The more I learn about nutrition the more nervous I become. What else do I not know?
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I suspect you're only touching the tip of the iceberg, Gene.
ReplyDeleteI'm a great believer in taking personal accountibiliy for what we put in our bodies, but when people are bombarded with cheap and quick convenience foods is it any wonder they happily eat them?
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