Does Indian Lifestyle Promote Obesity?

vegan

Sedate life and junk food (deep fried snacks, lots and lots of paneer, butter and ghee, white bread and rice...) are to be blamed? Wonder how do foreigners avoid gaining too much weight here? Or are they gaining weight with the rest of us?

http://www.ndtv.com/news/offbeat/india_to_have_maximum_number_o f_obese_people_by_2020.php

India to have maximum number of obese people by 2020

Press Trust of India, Thursday August 13, 2009, Chennai


India will have maximum number of obese people by 2020, sources from a city-based hospital said.

"Currently India ranks second with 155 million obese citizens, while China has 190 million. If this (trend) continues, the number of obese people living in the country will cross the number of obese people in China by 2020," J S Rajkumar, Chairman, Lifeline Hospitals told reporters on Thursday.

Quoting WHO statistics, he said apart from India and China, there were 42 million obese people living in the US, while in England it stood at 8.8 million. In Sri Lanka and Pakistan there were two million and 23 million obese citizens, respectively, he added.

He said improper food habits and less physical activities were the main reasons for people becoming obese.

In a bid to help people to remain physically fit the hospital started the 'Fight Fat Club' today. "It is a social initiative. The club aims to create a fat free society," he said, adding various topics on special low-calorie diets and counselling would be discussed in the club.

They had planned to conduct awareness camps in schools and colleges in this regard, he said, and added that a website on the club would be launched soon.

sharan_travelcrazy

Since India and China are heavily populated, the number of obese people obviously would be higher than other western countries.
But if u were to talk in terms of density (i.e obese people as a % of entire population), I feel countries like the U.S would still be far ahead when compared to India or China.

Also though Indian food had always included loads of fat, the likes of McDs, KFCs, pizza huts and marrybrowns are starting to make a sgnificant contribution atleast when it comes to the Gen Y of India.

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vegan

USA's population is about 300 million, India's about 4 times that. According to this article USA has 42 million obese people while India has 155 million - about 4 times that in America. So obesity density is about the same. Same is the story with China.

Only difference is that while in countries like the USA there is greater awareness and people are trying to control the obesity rate, as you too pointed out about McDs, KFCs etc, I feel that in India the problem has just gotten started.

sharan_travelcrazy

I would somehow beg to differ on this. There is certainly a lot of awareness these days at least amongst the young population when it comes to avoiding consumption of 'junk' food.

AusE

I do find the Indian food very heavy, and struggled when I first came here for a while trying to eat my standard Aussie diet. After being here for almost a year sadly I have lost the taste for a lot of Indian food (it's not that I don't like it, just after a while I think my body doesn't function as well on a regular diet of it!!), so getting by on a Indo-Western mix at the moment, generally tend to stick to anything cooked in the tandoor, lots of curd and raita, salads (much bigger than th cucumber/tomato/onion slices version), no ghee (sorry folks, no matter how nice everyone tells me it tastes ), 'dry' for gravy dishes and load up on as much of the unreal fruit and veg as I can. Never ate a lot of rice at home and hardly eat it here either. It does bug me that so much of the 'International' food I see in supermarkets is generally low-quality stuff full of junk thats been shipped in from the USA. I do have Sth Indian bouts and chaat days, yet I consider this a lighter option than alot of the other snacks etc available, and am always surprised at just how filling it is.

Also try to get in a decent amount of exercise, and I do find it hard to exercise here -mainly walking at the moment, as much as it is nearly killing me in this recent spout of humidity. As a foreigner I nearly always encounter the 'why are you going walking madam when you should be in a car with aircon and your driver' attitude, always makes me think of Forest Gump when they say "you're going walking again madam?".. .this would be in response to me going on a morning walk (exercise) and me walking 10 min up the road at some stage during the day to go to the market I guess education is still in the process, but I do often notice the more affluent Indians are sometimes a fair bit bigger than the "average" Indian (dare I say it), perhaps there's still the perception of prosperity associated with this.

But now the size of most of the pet dogs I've seen?? That's a worry

abracax

The problem is that with rising affluence many Indians get "feast food" every day - that and the usual fat-arsed teenagers playing computer games and internet all day while Mamaji fetches them snacks. Another group that have been severely whacked by the modern lifestyle is the Sherpas, who used to walk miles every day in the mountains subsisting on just enough calories to get by. Horrific level of diabetes once they shift to hotel clerking and taxi driving.

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SitaParityaga

This says it all. Learn from the mistakes made in the US. We're still educating ourselves.

I always lose weight in India. The extra exercise, eating locally grown foods, cutting out meat, trying to avoid the many "fried" options, really does make for feeling better. I take probitotics before and while I'm in India. It helped me.

Eastern Mind

sugar to the extreme, white rice, white bread, what more is there?
Thank god for bananas.

abracax

I should add that fortunately for me, my ancestors have been lazy fat-arsed bastards since Edward II invaded their homeland, so we have had time to adapt to a civilized lifestyle (sort of).

SitaParityaga

Do you go for the sugar, EM? Tell us, what level of sugar do you go for, ladoos or gulabs?

Sama

when I come back from India I have one friend who always tells me I look "emaciated." uh, OK, I really DID look emaciated last time but salmonella will do that for ya....

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namaste_cat

I think so too. Hopefully, once the novelty wears off, this will change. I see this with my nephews and nieces who live in India, who eat a lot of fast food. My poor deprived American kids eat my home cooking though!

On my Punjabi (mom's) side of the family, we eat whole grains, lots of yogurt, minimal oil/fat, lots of fruits and veggies and small amounts of lean meat. I'm almost 50 and my parents, aunts, uncles are all just as slim and healthy as my cousins and I are. No one is on prescription meds, no heart or diebetes or hip or knee issues. It's quite amazing & neat really to see them so spry well into their 80s and 90s. I hope the next generation gets that way too.

Eastern Mind

lol NEITHER! When we ordered coffee for breakfast in TN and the waiter brought us the extra cup, right full of sugar, filled higher than the coffee cups themselves, we both just stared in awe. Must have looked funny. Here when I go out with Tamils and order black coffee, the same expression comes out, but in other people. What?

My only sweet weakness is chocolate, and I lost weight over there too.

Our house has no white sugar in it. One time my Dad was visiting and arose before the rest of us, dug around in the cupboards, and proceeded to add a teaspoon of salt to his coffee.

Nick-H

I've done that!

I wouldn't keep white sugar, except that alternatives, here, are expensive and hard to find. I've never experimented with Jaggery in chai, but I would expect the flavour to be too strong.

jituyadav

What exactly you mean by Indian lifestyle? I think there is no specific reason for Indians to be obese, more than why people from other parts being obese. High sugar and fat foods are a plenty everywhere. It is still not such a bad situation here because of economical condition, the other being that one ride in city bus take out ten gulabjamun worth of energy.

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