Bad Nutrition - An Epidemic
Nutrition is one of the most important aspects of a healthy (or unhealthy, as the case may be) lifestyle. It is also an equal partner of an exercise program in any sort of athletic or fitness goal. Quite simply put, the quality of nutrition is directly proportional to the quality and length of life that a person might enjoy. Figuring out what exactly is quality nutrition is a challenging thing for most people, and indeed most experts, and we will tackle it a little later. For now, let's take a gander at some facts about our health and eating habits.
In the year 2000 I read about a report by the United Nations that the number of overweight people in the world had equaled the number of underfed people in the world, 1.4 billion each. The level of overweight people has just been going up since then. For instance, according to statcan.ca in the year 2004 23.1% of Canadians over the age of 18 were obese, as judged by their BMI (body mass index.) Another 36.1% were overweight.
We now also have the largest incidence of weight related sickness the world has ever seen. Even Type II diabetes, formerly known as "adult onset diabetes" because it would take years to develop and manifest itself later in life, is now occurring in children under the age of five. And in fact it is easy to see a reason for this as public places are filled with overweight and obese kids, chowing down junk food as if their life depended on it. And it does! More precisely, all our lives depend on it. Just like the quality of nutrition is directly proportional to health, the quantity of junk food is inversely proportional to health. The more junk food you eat, the more likely you are to be ill and die prematurely.
And speaking of junk food... There are now over 31,000 MacDonald's locations in the world. There are over 11,000 Burger King locations; over 6,700 Wendy's; 3,000 Tim Horton's, and the list goes on. As the fast food chains grow and expand so do the waistlines all over the world. And while the waistlines expand the quality of life for millions of people the world over goes down.