Food, Medicine & Lies - dr. Prritii
According to a study done in recent times claimed that nearly 17 million children would be obese by the end of 2025.
Globally, 4 million people died due to their excessive weight conditions in 2015. It is hard for me actually to believe in that figure, but this a bitter truth that I need to swallow.
We all know by now that what all has changed in the last decade which has eventually led us to such an epidemic. A country like India, which is on the brink of embracing a special period in its history where most of its population would be young, is also embracing a dark period where the young citizens are sitting obese in their homes.
The recent young population is being welcomed as the new drivers of the Indian economy when it comes to contributing from the viewpoint of the workforce. Still, my real concern is the productivity of these youngsters. And more so, my concerns are the same for the elders as well.
If I look at the bigger picture, then I think we as elders have failed to set ourselves as an example in front of our kids. If the charity begins at home, then the same philosophy even applies when it comes to developing the culture of healthy practices in our homes.
But leaving all this aside, I instead want to share something positive today about how treating obesity has become much more advanced. And relax, I am not here to talk about the shortcuts such as bariatric surgery.
Read this article till the end, and maybe, it can save you from holding onto severe conditions such as poor cardiac health, diabetes, and other complications associated with being obese.
Below are the new approaches that modern medicine now follows to reverse obesity naturally. Yeah, naturally. But before that, let’s understand what was happening till now because that will allow you to make a fair judgment of what has changed.
Conventional Approaches:
To be honest with you, and I say this with no offense, but the current practitioners don’t have the required knowledge to treat someone’s long-time obesity. New drugs just come and go, which talk about obesity cures, but we all know their reality by now. Fad diets are being circulated at a massive level, and this centralized approach of nutrition will genuinely lead us nowhere. Such approaches over time have proven to be obsolete.
So, what has changed and what does the modern approaches say?
1. It takes more than a 10 Minutes Consultation to Educate Someone about Eating Healthy – The real issue is of the limited knowledge that the practitioner has. And even I have no shame in admitting the fact that I was also on the same side. Four to five years back I would have given close to 10-15 minutes for a consultation, but now I give at least 50 to 60 minutes per consultation to know the person and to educate about him or her on what they should be doing in the first phase of their weight loss journey.
2. Proper Investigations for Analyzing the Shortcomings of the Entire Body – Most of the time, when results are not seen in obesity, despite exercising or being on a diet indicates that the problem lies somewhere else. Researches have now shown that there can be several root causes behind someone gaining or not being able to lose weight. But when that root cause is known, the journey becomes much easier. The usual routine investigations done by nutritionists and dieticians are not enough. Sometimes, we need to dig in a little deeper to get the desired results.
3. Your Stress Levels are Supposed to be Monitored – A complete stress-free life is a bit hard to imagine, but not being able to cope up with the emotional dilemmas is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently. I have talked about this in my previous articles on how stress hinders all of your health goals. The unmanaged stress often results in weight gain, sugar cravings, poor sleeping patterns, affects metabolism negatively, and all of them are the enemies of obesity reversal. If your doctor isn’t putting efforts to take care of your stress levels, then I would suggest to change him or her immediately.
4. A Personalized Approach for Nutrition – A one-size-fits-all approach is cumbersome and ineffective at the same time. Treating two bodies as the same is an unfair practice. A definition of healthy food for every single person stands unique. What you must be considered as your new superfood can actually turn out to be a negative role player in somebody else’s diet.
5. Gut Health – A sick gut is an invitation to chronic, autoimmune, and other lifestyle diseases, obesity being one of them. Although obesity is generally not considered as a disease, the truth is that being obese puts you at risk. A damaged gut transition into a healthy gut will nearly solve most of your health issues. The correlation of your gut health and overall body health is way too high. Trillions of bacteria are living in your gut, and their role in how they affect the body is still in the discovery mode. So far, we have concluded that disturbances amongst them can cause havoc in one’s life. Thus, the emphasis on gut health should be more than enough when somebody has got obesity.
6. Detoxification – Your body can’t be living with heavy metal toxins such as lead, arsenic, mercury, mold, cadmium, etc. A recent report which was even broadcasted by CNN talked about how such heavy metals are affecting the brain functioning of the infants. We are literally living in a pool of harmful toxins, and the fact is we don’t seem to care about it. But the good thing is that such toxins can be flushed out of the system if one does take proper treatment and does get himself tested for heavy metal toxins. How these toxins can affect your body is unthinkable. I daily see new patients in the clinic who have their bodies stuffed with toxins.
Functional Medicine identifies that obesity and weight gain have deep-rooted causes that cannot simply corrected by restricting food and exercising. Weight gain or loss and obesity are signs of immune dysfunctions, or in other words, inflammations. To be successful at weight loss and keeping it off, we must consider what is activating the immune system and causing inflammation.
Dr. Priti Nanda as a Functional Medicine Expert, recognizes the deep rooted causes of this immune system and inflammations through some tests and then treats the patients for long term results.
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