A View from the Shed with Julian Krieg

Last week I heard that about 1.4 million Australians now suffer from type two diabetes.

As I contemplated this huge number and the probability that it could be even bigger when we add the ones we don’t know about (because they haven’t been diagnosed yet) I couldn’t help wondering why in such a great country like Australia we have let this type of thing get such a hold on us, particularly our younger people.

In many ways this type of problem is a direct result of having an affluent society. What we seem to lack as individuals or a society is restraint to curb our consumption of food and drink to the point where it meets our needs rather than our desires.

One way of illustrating our problem is to compare us to our cars.

Imagine if your car had an expanding petrol tank, every time you went to the garage you could put an extra 500 ml in the tank, and the car had the ability to store it up in case it needed it. At first glance we might say that’s great! The car is building up its capacity to travel that bit extra distance before the next fill, or have something in reserve if I forget to fill sometime.

But consider the real impact, after one year the tank capacity has probably increased by 25 litres which equates to 25 Kilos extra weight. If we consider the long term effect after 10 years the car would be carrying an extra 250 Kilos which is more than a 200 litre drum of unused fuel in the boot. Think how this would impact on the car’s performance.

The unfortunate thing is that this is almost exactly what happens to us, our body has the ability to store unused “fuel” (food) and we don’t notice it at the start. We kid ourselves and don’t think that extra bit of “food” will make that much difference.

The trouble is our body does accommodate the extra intake which doesn’t get used and is stored as fat. We then start to lose performance, and we develop all sorts of problems like diabetes.

Unfortunately we then call it a medical problem. It is true that the doctors have to deal with treating the problem but really the solution to these issues rests with us and the choices we make about lifestyle.

We all need to resist eating more than we need to maintain our lifestyle. If we keep a check of calories we take in and calories we use up so that we don’t force our body to store surplus food as fat some of the problems we as individuals, and hence our society, is experiencing will start to dissipate.

Enjoy your food but don’t expand the fuel tank.

Regards
JulianRead full post...