Obesity: The Death Of Us All

Everyone knows that if you are obese you are putting your life in danger, but new studies show that obese people could actually put everyone else in danger too! Why? Simple, finite resources.

In this world that we live in the human society depends on a limited amount of resources. From food to energy nothing that we have is fully sustainable. At the current rate of population growth and scientific innovation we'll still be in grave danger of running out of everything. And now with the increasing mass of the population, food may just become a little more scarce.

So what does this mean for the rest of us? It means that there's very few things that we can do to stop this. Other than campaign for more restriction to control obesity or help a friend lose a few pounds and live healthier there's not many things non obese people can do.

Only the obese people can really make a big difference and they can be the difference between life and death for the rest of the world (a bit exaggerated but I wanted to add some drama >.< )
If somehow, someone put in initiatives to specifically target overweight people then there might be a chance of a better life for the rest of us.

If you think about it, obesity actually affects everyone as it is at the moment. The NHS already spends hundreds of millions of pounds sorting out problems associated with being on the heavy side. The daily mail recently published an article stating there were 110'000 super obese people in the UK who cost the NHS £450 million alone. From heart transplants to lip suction and tummy tucks, it's all coming from the taxpayer and putting extra unnecessary strain on the already pressured and money stricken national health system.

So who is to blame for this level of portliness that the world is now knee deep in? Well there are many areas and no one thing is to blame. It's a culmination of things, which only makes the problem harder to eradicate.

LAZINESS INSTANT ERA: Everything that we want we can get with very little effort. Companies go out of their way to make things easier for you (for a small charge) meaning that you can get everything you need delivered to your door. There are even businesses out there that make meals for you and deliver them to your house so you can eat cooked food without the fuss! Even then, we have microwaves which can heat food instantaneously, saving you from heating up pots and pans. This means that people are using less energy throughout their days and are getting out and about a lot less. And as they sit down for most of their days at work and then at home they pile on the pounds and when they get hungry they can simply get some........

FAST FOOD: Following on from the last point, people will generally go for the easier option instead of the healthier option. This is where the fast food places have benefited and made their money. By making food that tastes mediocre, targets the body's salt craving, is cheap and by definition fast to get at the companies have absorbed millions of customers. Some people eat fast food as often as cows eat grass. So it's no wonder that it's so easy to gain the pounds and so many people have. So, will these companies actually make healthy fast food? They probably will make a few but I personally don't think they'd ever defect to a healthy ethos. Mainly because they make too much money of their unhealthy products so will carry on for as long as they can.

EDUCATION: People are educated in a load of things, most of which helps people through life. In most cases you do have classes on food and how to make it, but why are there not in depth classes on what is IN the food and which ones are HARMFUL or BENEFICIAL to your health. At the moment most people learn about the 5 food groups and how you should include all of them throughout your day. If people knew what to look for when they choose to eat, a lot more people would avoid the bad foods and stick with the foods that are good for them.

HEALTH SYSTEM:  The health system is this country is a free one , although you pay taxes for the services. So anything that may or may not happen to you will be covered. This means that the people who are obese and can't be bothered to reverse their weight gain, regardless of what their doctors and specialists will tell them, will always be able to get a bypass or an operation with no fees. If the system were different where people where only allowed a set amount of free operations per patient if the reason for the operation is self inflicted then we may see people start to take control and try to stop themselves from having another operation because they know that they'll have to pay for it. This could also work for smokers and alcoholics but wouldn't affect people with cancer for example.

SOCIETY: The world that we live in is one where we are bombarded with what a good looking person looks like and in most cases it's an anorexic or fairly thin woman or a lean, ripped guy. The effect of these images can be that people try as hard they can to get to that sort of physique and can end up not eating food at all in a kamikaze attempt to lose weight. If they achieve the look then they tend to stick to their dangerous ans self harming lifestyle thinking that they are attractive now. And if it doesn't work then people end up crashing and this affects them psychologically and may go on an eating frenzy and gain lots of weight. The view that society has on overweight people can be a downward spiral for people who are overweight. As they hear the negative comments related to being overweight they may comfort eat and so on.

In conclusion, the increasing mass of the general population of this planet is a very worrying thing and unless something drastic is done it will continue to rise much to everyone's detriment. Whether the change comes from the fast food industry or the government the way people are allowed to gain weight and benefit off other people's taxes is not right and if it's going to affect everyone else in the future then there's even more reason to stop this trend. One thing I forgot to mention was how people are eating a lot more food than they need to and in other places there is not enough food, a fact i learned on the link below is that more people are overweight than undernourished. Will things change? Only time will tell...

If you liked this there's a series related to this on BBC 2 called The Men Who Made Us Fat.

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Sources
:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18462985
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2161976/Obesity-crisis-The-110-000-super-obese-patients-cost-NHS-450m-year.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2011/08August/Pages/half-of-uk-predicted-to-be-obese-by-2030.aspx

Islamic Takeover

This post is not intended to offend, it's an expression of my opinion. If you don't like it, leave a comment and I'll see to it that nothing is done.  =)
I have done my best to get the facts right but don't quote me on this as some bits may be inaccurate. If they are leave a comment and I'll change it.

So you're probably wondering what I'm going to say considering the title is Islamic Takeover, It's nothing major just their HALAL food which, to be honest, seems to be everywhere. You can't go to any place for food or grocery shopping without getting halal food. Be it halal at your KFC, tomato sauce with the halal logo or HFA approved bread. I find it annoying and disrespectful of other people's eating habits. Jewish people immigrated to England well before Muslims and they didn't turn all the meat kosher so I don't see why everything is turning halal now.

The reason I find it annoying is it's method of production. Halal meat is meat that has no blood and is killed in the name of Allah. It has no blood because the creature is slaughtered in such a way that the heart has time to pump out all of the blood with usually 3 or 4 cuts to the main veins. The animal effectively bleeds to death.
That's not all, during the death, the person recites certain parts of the Qur'an over the creature (the tasmiya or shahada)

Cruel Much?

Another reason I am against halal meat is religion. In the Sikh religion it is forbidden to eat meat that has not been killed with one strike. This means that the animal dies instantly with little or no pain and no prolonged suffering. This is how, in my opinion, it should be done.

However, there is some debate amongst groups of people who believe the halal meat isn't actually halal but just a label for extra sales. They say that British laws state that the animals to be killed aren't allowed to suffer for any prolonged period and that the animals are killed instantly. The meat actually has to be stunned first, via electrocution or a bolt through the head prior to killing.
The meat is then sent to certain places to be "halalified", the same cuts are made and the Qur'an is placed on a loop on a cassette player. As many places do this to make halal meat it would be a violation of the rules as the animal has to be alive when it is slaughtered. And although the Muslim (and Jewish) communities are exempt from a section of the law that required all animals to be stunned before they are slaughtered, many people just use the method mention previously where they simply buy the meat pre-killed. So they say.

So although I don't know whether the food is actually halal, the fact that people claim it is, have it certified and have it checked pretty much makes it. The problem with asking the staff is that they think you want halal food and so say that it is for the sale which is wrong in itself.

Overall, I respect that the Muslim community can only eat halal food and so many places are adapting to this by buying halal meat and groceries from their suppliers. My only wish would be that they still bought the NON-HALAL food thus giving people the OPTION of whether they want halal food or not. It wouldn't cost extra. They could just buy a small amount initially and have everything clearly labelled that there is an option, see how it goes and get stock through sale projections over a 6 week period. Now if they had that from the start, I wouldn't be writing this post, I wouldn't have the headache of asking if the meat is halal or not and  I probably wouldn't have converted to vegetarianism.

In the end, Freedom of Choice is all I ask for.


Sources:
Wikipedia
http://www.shariahprogram.ca/eat-halal-foods/islamic-guidelines-slaughtering-animals.shtml
http://www.quran-islam.org/articles/halal_meat_(P1156).html
http://www.cometoislam.com/halalmeat.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/uk_1.shtml
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1995/731/contents/made
http://www.rspca.org.uk/allaboutanimals/farm/slaughter/factfile
http://www.halalfoodauthority.co.uk/definitionhalal.html