slideshow

He’s returned “again” for physical training. He’s an attractive man, 6-feet, 2-inches tall – when he walks into a room he’s outstanding.

But, it isn’t his height nor his fair-looks that made him stand out – it’s his weight. At 321 pounds, Jimmy’s obese. Jimmy’s not alone – over thirty-five percent of his adult brothers and sisters here in America are categorized as obese and 17 percent of this nation’s children — triple the number since our last generation — are obese. Obesity is causing this nation billions in health care and an untold number of needless deaths related to suicide, stress induced anger and preventable diseases. There is one leading cause of obesity, her name is stress.

There are six major areas of concern related to stress’ impact on obesity, and they are these: searching for easy answers, trauma of weight impact, repeating marketed/fad diets, exercise failure, self-confidence lost , sequestered by genetics. These together fully define the stress related to obesity. Let’s take a brief look are each very complicated area.

We’ll start with “searching for easy answers,” Jimmy constantly brings advertised “easy answers” to me for my review, sea-weed wraps, magical “sweat” bands, special herbs and wondrous brews of “stuff” like vitamins, caffeine, and “magic beans”. The products are put forward as easy answers – but in the end, but for perhaps a brief moment, they will not work. “Trauma of weight impact,” Jimmy often complains about his knees, hips, and the all too often lower-back pains. He’s looked for answers with various practitioners and the results are often the same, x-rays ($$$), pain medications ($$$), muscular manipulation and adjustments ($$$). Obesity is common to all of his aches and pains – the cause is Jimmy’s obesity and the “true” treatment is controlled and sustained weight loss.

“Repeating marketed/fad diets,” Jimmy’s been on more “fad” diets than Carter has “little liver pills”. Listen to the whisper of history, “diet pills and fad diets” don’t work. What works is eating for health with an educated understanding of the impact of nutrition on the body. Eating a triple-decker-burger, with giant-piggy-fries and then ordering a 20 ounce “diet” soft-drink simply won’t work. “Exercise failure,” now let me be really clear, I mean exercise above daily routines. Exercise like walking for 20 minutes each day, getting away from the electronic hypnotism of today’s society and find entertainment in the life of nature and family. There’s no wiser move than joining the Towne Fitness Club – and there is no better answer than embracing the call of nature – please, get up, get out, and get active!

Obesity festers in the stress of “self-confidence lost,” Jimmy would like to be the center of attraction but not because of his size, rather his kind and generous heart. Seems knowing you are often the center of comments, side-remarks, and pointed entrances is painful – it’s no wonder Jimmy has lost his self-confidence. There is this though, the minority who are obese are so not because of their own hands and actions, but because they are “sequestered by genetics”. If genetics make it impossible to process food, reject disease and self-heal then medical help will be a necessity. Know this, although “stress” is indeed the primary cause of adult obesity, the main and major causes of childhood obesity are found in absent and uneducated parents – but hey, you knew that.