Causes and Symptoms:
Obesity or corpulence is a
condition of the body characterized by over-accumulation of fat under
the skin and around certain of the internal organs. While the state of
health differs from person to person, other things being equal, the
father a person is, the slower he will be. In some cases fat persons are
slow of wit. Doctors and actuaries have calculated the weight that a
person of a particular height should have and anybody having a weight
much above the average is likely to be unhealthy and would have a lower
life expectancy. Insurance companies hesitate, and in some cases refuse,
to insure the lives of people who are too fat. It has been proved from
experience that the obese have a grater chance of dying early than those
of average weight. Recorded cases exist where extremely overweight
people did not live beyond their thirties, some of them passing away
even before they entered middle age.
Corpulence is ascribed to
many causes. It may be due to the disturbances of some of the endocrine
glands, like the thyroid, pituitary and sex glands. In some families
obesity is transmitted from one generation to the other, but in most
cases it is the direct result of a life of ease and over-eating. A
luxurious inactive or sedentary life is a well-recognized predisposing
cause. The more immediate cause is over feeding and excess of liquor.
The indulgence is food beyond what is required to repair the daily waste
goes towards the increase of fat. Those addicted to liquor are
particularly affected if they eat a normal diet since what is not
generally realized is that alcohol meets the immediate energy needs of
the body and the food that is eaten is deposited in the form of fat.
Particularly guilty in this respect is to intake of fatty, sugary and
starchy foods. Alcoholic liquors, particularly beer, contain sugar and
contribute to the deposition of fat on the body.
Women are more
prone to obesity, particularly after childbirth. In our country, this is
especially true because the new mother is fed on fatty and starchy
foods under the impression that the blood loss attendant on delivery
must be made up by extra rich diet.
Health cannot be long
maintained under excessive obesity, for the increase in the bulk of the
body, rendering exercise more difficult, leads to tension and defective
nutrition of the muscle, while the accumulations of fat in the chest
hinders the functions of the various organs of the body. The mental
activity of the corpulent tends to be impaired, although there have been
exceptions to this rule.
The obese succumb much more readily to
serious diseases like diabetes, gallstone, arterial disease, high blood
pressure and varicose veins. Life insurance statistics how show that an
increase of 25 pounds above standard weight reduce the life expectancy
of a man of 45 by 25 per cent.
Nature gave men a balanced body,
but way wrong food habits some of us tend make cartoons of ourselves.
There being a weight-energy ratio, the more obese a person is, the more
energy his body consumes merely to maintain itself and the sum of energy
left for other activities is proportionately reduced. You would notice
that those who live by manual labour seldom suffer from corpulence: it
is the leisured class, with nothing much to do but too much to eat who
become fat.
Corpulence is like constipation; just as waste
accumulates in the gut, matter, which should have been thrown out of the
body, tends to gather in the form of fat on the various organs. Skin
being stretchable, fat accumulates in layers upon layers under the
epidermis.
Treatment:
One would agree that not to
become fat is better than reducing when you have attained a certain
degree of corpulence. One would not have become obese if he had attended
to his food habits and had taken exercise. The battle against obesity
has, therefore, to be fought with courage and fortitude. Weight could be
reduced by fasting in a limited time but that is not advisable. Sudden
and total fasting may help the poison accumulated in the body to attack
it. Fasting has to be gradual and controlled. The best course is to make
fruits and boiled vegetables the main stay of your diet. A diet of
fruits and vegetables will give you the vitamins and mineral salts for
the sustenance of life, but would tend to reduce the amount of fat that
has already been accumulating. The other method of reducing the fat is
accumulating. The other method of reducing the fat is vigorous exercise.
Foods tending towards acidity like meat, fish eggs, refined flour,
lentils, fats polished rice should be totally banned in the case of
obesity. Whatever the patient eats should be bland, because seasoning
and condiments tend to make the food more palatable increasing the
danger of overeating. The fruits recommended are oranges, pineapples,
raspberry, tomatoes, apples, pears papaya, muskmelon and melon, in that
order. The vegetables should be greens of all type, cucumber gourds,
etc. tuberous edibles should be avoided. Only carrot may be taken with
advantage.
After a fortnight of the diet prescribed above, the
patient can be allowed to take whole meal, bread, a pat of butter and
milk. The first thing in the morning that the corpulent should take is a
glass of water to which a lime has been added. Salads should be
permitted provided that salad oil or eggs have not been added. The best
reducing agent in the present author's experience has been the juice of
cucumber, gourd and tomatoes to which a lime and a spoonful of honey has
been added. It between meals, snacks should consist of cucumber and
tomatoes in any quantity.
If the above regimen is adopted the
weight will start going down, but the patient should not lose heart if
the progress is slow in the beginning. A speedy reduction of weight is
possible by vigorous exercise coupled with inadequate diet, but that
might prove harmful to the general health of the patient. The best
exercise I would recommend is skipping the rope, and other exercise
which strains the muscles can be undertaken with advantage.
A
hipbath for 15 to 20 minutes in the morning and evening along with the
diet and the exercise recommended would speed up the process of losing
fat. Mudpacks can also help, as can sunbathing for long enough to
produce a sweat. Stem baths for the purposes of reducing corpulence are
not recommended by any knowledge naturopath since the benefit is not
permanent and too much of exposure to steam is likely to harm the nerve
ends under your skin.
The best season to start slimming in India
and other tropical conditions is the summer when a large variety of
stress help in the reduction of fat in the body. The appetite is reduced
because heat makes you thirsty all the time. You take a little bit of
food and are eager to slake your thirst. And then it is during summers
that the body has a natural tendency to shed fat.
Some slimming
exercises are recommended below: it would be. Sit up with a jerk. Stand
on your knees touch other. Now tense your muscles and move your neck as
back as you can and resume the former position. Sit on the stool again
and repeat the process as many times as you can. Continue it till you
feel tired. Do it 50 to 100 times if you want real benefit. Relax your
body after each time that you get up and move your neck and shoulders
back.
Sit with your buttocks on the edge of low-slung stool. Extend your
legs as far they will go and keep your hands on the rear end of the
stool for support. Then stand up with a jerk, inhaling deeply in the
process. And then resume your position.
Try taking your shoulders back with a jerk as you sit down. That will strengthen your spinal column.
Try
skipping a rope for as long as you can. It helps in keeping the fat
down. Remember that the boxes do it every day to increases their
stamina.