If 20 million Americans were to appear on the streets tomorrow, each with a cement block weighing between 20 and 40 pounds permanently attached to his person, it would create a tremendous stir. How, you would ask, can they carry a load like that for the rest of their lives? They would command the sympathy of the entire nation. It is quite likely that our Congress itself would enact some kind of legislation to aid them. Fantastic? Not at all. As a matter of fact, such a situation does prevail right at this moment. The only difference is that the weights those 20 million Americans are carrying consist of fat rather than cement. And the burdens are less conspicuous because they are distributed over the body. But from the standpoint of health and the added work load placed on the heart, it makes no difference whether the cargo is cement or adipose tissue. The cost to the individual - in poor health, loss of energy, and in most cases, a shorter lifespan - is the same.
Overweight is a hidden disease. About the only people who seem to take this seriously are physicians and insurance actuaries. At least they are the only ones concerned in terms of health and longevity. They know that overweight is a "hidden disease," responsible for shortening the life of every average American adult by almost five and one-half years.Think what that means. Our own generation will lose a combined 108 million years of life because of overweight! This figure represents many times the number of adult years lost by the premature deaths of young men killed in World Wars I and II. Only in the past few years has the public become even dimly aware of the critical and dangerous results of being a nation of "fat cats." It's time we all began to sit up and take notice. If we learn how to count the calories, we will learn also how to count on more years of vibrant, healthful life. The tables of calorie values given in this chapter can become your easy-to-use weapon for fighting overweight and the bodily and emotional illnesses it brings on. Dr. Louis D. Dublin and Herbert H. Marks of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company were among the first to point to increased death rates attributable to excessive fat. In consequence, there have been a number of campaigns aimed at persuading people to reduce their weights to the normal or even the ideal figure.
Diet for health, not for beauty. Unfortunately, people are intensely human and, to give a new twist to an old maxim, the spirit is willing but the flesh is strong. The result has been a widespread practice of "stop-and-go" dieting aimed not at improved health, but at a more fashionable silhouette. Nothing could be worse than that kind of up-and-down-the-scales program. In the first place, you benefit from reduced weight only if the normal weight is maintained from that time on. Taking it off and then putting it on again is worse than remaining overweight, because it is in the process of becoming fat that a large part of the damage is done. This damage occurs in the blood vessels, liver, and heart - all critical sites of the body. Although the process of becoming fat is more detrimental than being fat, carrying around an over-upholstered frame is also a way to shorten the period of your sojourn on earth. As you put on excessive fat, movement of the blood throughout the body is slowed. The heart has to work harder to keep the circulation going. And the added weight places a greater burden upon your joints, which may develop trouble as a consequence.
Is overweight due to "glandular trouble"? You may often hear laymen express the view that some people are fat because of "glandular trouble." Such cases actually are very few. The reason most people are fat is simply because they eat more food than they actually need for their activities. The only way to cut down on weight is to cut down on eating, to reduce the number of calories in your daily diet.
What causes overweight? There are many causes for overweight. Most people, however, are overweight simply because they overeat. A very small percentage of people are obese due to some endocrine or glandular disorder. Some cases possibly are due to an error in the individual's metabolism. And still another small percentage of cases result from an inherited or constitutional trait that runs in families and is passed on from one generation to another like coloring, or facial and bodily structure. But the causes of obesity in over 95 per cent of the victims are: (1) nervousness, and (2) bad eating habits.
Nervousness is a primary cause of overweight. People overeat from nervousness, either conscious or subconscious, for a variety of reasons. Some people, when they feel anxious, constantly and regularly relieve their anxiety by the elemental satisfaction of eating. As they become more and more anxious, they require more and more food and become more and more fat! A vicious cycle. One of my patients, Judy S., aged 15, is very obese because of the lack of love and appreciation from her mother, who gives all her love and centers all her attention on her 2-year old, sickly little brother. Another patient, Mr. F., a 38-year old sales manager, is fat because he can't seem to stop eating in between meals and all during the evening as he sits by the television. He has been in danger of losing his job because his sales quotas continue to fall off and he feels certain that he will eventually lose his job. But still he eats. The more nervous he gets, the more he eats. Some people are so habituated to living under constant tension in their work or at home that the glands in their nervous and glandular systems constantly drive their blood sugars to low levels. As a result they feel continuously hungry, weak, tired, and tense. Food momentarily raises their blood sugars to normal levels. By eating continuously or at least frequently in between meals, they are able to have the strength and concentration to complete their tasks at work or in the home.
A feeling of failure can lead to overeating. Many other obese individuals eat out of sheer frustration or a feeling of failure. One patient of mine, a 28-year old man, is a brilliant mathematician. He wanted badly to become a physicist and scholar, especially since he was of a quiet, shy nature. Instead, he was prevailed upon to enter his father's large and very successful business. An only son, he was to be "groomed" as his father's successor in the running of the extensive family factories. Each day at work was one of frustration for him as he struggled to learn a business in which he basically had no interest. Probably most frustrating of all was the problem of coping with a hard-driving, dynamic father who dominated him and virtually threatened to crush his entire personality. Result? Every hour or so found him in the company cafeteria for a "breather," and the coffee breaks were easier to extend when some donuts, candy, or biscuits went along for the ride. At meal-hours, getting "oral" gratification from large meals with second helpings seemed to stave off the time for getting back to work during the day and seemed to make life tolerable. This man ate to ward off his constant frustration at his work and his domineering father. But his "solution" far from solved his basic problem; it created a new one on top of it. We all know that the eating of food is man's most primitive necessity for survival. And in order to survive the frustrations, tensions, anxieties, and loneliness that seem to grow worse with time, man often returns to his primitive behavior to give him a sense of some security and the feeling of overcoming his growing worries. A subsequent chapter discusses more fully some ways to combat these tensions. Many of these more severe problems require the care and guidance of experts especially trained in the treatment of emotional disturbances.
Bad food habits a second main cause of overweight. It is remarkable to find how many people eat out of boredom, sheer habit, or to the accompaniment of a newspaper, a book, or a heated business discussion. Many succumb to the habit of eating at a "minute" diner or lunch counter, gulping their food and running a "hoof and mouth" race with Father Time. (He always wins.) Others are trained from childhood to stuff themselves - "finish your plate." An old relic of primitive days when food scarcities or the uncertainties of a next meal or a next day were constantly present. Some call this "scavenger eating;" many children acquire this habit by imitating their parents who may have been raised under food scarcity circumstances. Many men and women are the victims of monotony or plain poor cooking in their meals. They rarely vary the selection and choice of foods out of sheer inertia, indifference, or lack of attention. So they try to make up in quantity what they lack in quality, seeking satisfaction from calories instead of from quality and contrast.
