Opinion : An overly fed society

Our current society is angry to be hungry. Food consumerism is thriving in the 21st century. Food has never been available like this. Way back to our early ancestors, Adam and Eve needs to hunt, herd or in other words work hard before a meal can be served. That is not the case now. How hard was it to call a pizza parlor and order one 18 inches stuffed crust pizza?

Obesity is an epidemic. Obesity is no longer just a lifestyle alone. It is already considered a lifestyle "disease". According to a business mirror article,

The Philippines is not only facing a ballooning population but also its people, figuratively speaking according to a new report.

That report mentioned that there are about 5.1 percent of the population considered as obese and another 23.6 percent considered as overweight. That is an alarming 18 million Filipinos devouring lots of food. Overweight but definitely not well nourished. Another alarming fact is that obesity cost the Mother land between $500 million and $1 billion equivalent to between 4 percent and 8 percent of its health-care spending.

A seemingly ironic detail about the study is there are still roughly 7 million malnourished children that experiences hunger in the Philippines. It just shows that the government is battling both sides of the same coin. It is the same issue of under nourishment having two different pictures that at a glance may differ. Obesity hides in an over abundance mask which gives us the idea that there is nothing wrong unless we eat. Going back to the study, this culprit of under nourishment known as obesity is driven by less physical activity and low dietary quality. With the advent of technology that uses computers as a play thing and work, adults and children alike are more encouraged to sit rather than the old way of playing under the sun and working physically. As shown on the study shown by DOLE, almost all that belongs on the top 10 highest paying jobs on the Philippines does not involve physically challenging activities. Filipinos also have poor choices of food since almost every food places or food stalls serves food with empty calories. Fast food here and there but not really enough to sustain our daily nutrient requirement. Having poor food choices makes people obese and is linked to many diseases. WebMD enumerates the following:

• Heart Diseases and Stroke
• High blood pressure
• Diabetes
• Some cancers
• Gallbladder disease and gallstones
• Osteoarthritis
• Gout
• Breathing problems, such as sleep apnea
• Asthma

Luckily obesity is a lifestyle disease that can be cured by an informed choice. It is something that we have a power over. If we will learn to choose what we eat and what not to eat and empower ourselves to do what we need to do we have a fighting chance to overcome the veil of illusion equating eating a lot to nourishment.