Indian obesity

My morning paper (TOI) has a big thing about obesity at the moment. No wonder as it was obesity day last week on tuesday. Bangalore is supposed to be the world obesity capital in 2030. On the weekend all of us readers got another lecture on animal fat and junk food. As the paper gives constant lectures on what to eat and what not i cannot help it anymore to pass some of my own comments.

It seems only fast food and non-veg eaters get the blame. Spell whoever eats at McDees, KFC or anywhere on the street in the invariable "sagars" is to be blamed and heads straight for a bypass operation and/or a failing pancreas.

The other side is the extreme advice to prefer apples to bananas as they are too calourious. Hello, hello and where are we going here?? Anorexia I hear thou knocking!

What i see all around me is overweight housewifes. Saris drabbed happily in XXXL style, and olive skinned hip-gold flowing in folds over expensive zari or zardosi borders. Sternfaced they walk in aged shalwars and worn sneakers in earnest rounds in the park believing the 15 minutes daily exercise will make up for their extended desi ghee consumption at mealtimes. I can see them at dinner table slapping themselves another overloaded tablespoon of ghee onto their unsuspecting basmati rice. I see them smiling and frying the spices in half liter of coconut oil. Beta, the taste won't come out if you take less! Apart from the grammatical error this is an error in perception aswell!

The pure amount of sugar and oil consumed in any normal household here daily makes my pancreas and heart feel shaken. I avoid any so called "tea" or "coffee" out off my own house. I usually find they are hot watery sugar brews which i am unable to consume at all (even if i asked for "less sugar" initially already). Oil dripping dosas come swinging their fatty borders like heavied, filled skirthems from homely kitchens all over the city.

Where this eating habits lead to is very obvious:

Diabetes and heart problems are not a hand clap away.

My heartfelt wish would be to give everyone better advice how to implement a reduction of oil and sugar into their daily diets. I feel there is nothing wrong in occasional visits at fast food stores say like once a month. Street side vendors serve great lean food aswell, Idli for example. Why is noone telling folks which are the harmful foods and which are perfectly ok, I wonder.

Anyway, enjoy your meal, whatever it is. But please make sure thou insert some fruit or fresh (sugarfree!) juices into your diet here and there!

So long farewell!