Obesity and Diabetes in India: Why India has the highest number of Diabetics patients in the world? (77 million) / Diabetic, 2nd rank, junk food, fried, obesity, India, BMI, Insulin levels, Vitamin B12, Fat percentage
Obesity and Diabetes in India
Obesity and Diabetes in India: Why India has the highest number of Diabetics patients in the world? (77 million) / India Diabetic patients are rising / BMI a bad indicator of health / Fat %, Insulin levels, and B12 levels should be used to check health / 77 million people with diabetics and rising cases/concerns
Currently, 5% of the Indian population suffers from diabetes. It is a chronic illness where one’s body is unable to control its blood glucose level, which may also lead to heart disease, kidney failure, blindness, amputations, etc. Adults with diabetes have a two- to three-fold increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. 65% of the people in Chennai have either diabetics or pre-diabetics, which is a growing number, and it is not only due to our unhealthy lifestyle. The diet we have and the lifestyle we live is a part of the problem, as India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world right now, getting acquainted with more western food. Still, it’s not the only reason.
Reason 1: Change in technology, but almost no change in diet.
Let me start from the beginning, earlier people in India were traditionally thin; due to malnutrition and poverty. And as an underdeveloped nation, we were not technologically advanced, hence a lot of labor work was involved in the day to day life. Half a decade ago, people used to travel 10–15 KM, they used to plow the fields, consequently, they were able to digest high carbs and fatty food.
Progress leads to lazier people
But now we have tractors, pumps, public transport, and others, hence the progress in India has made us lazier. And removed the requirement for high carb food, but we have not only never removed them from our diet chart, instead, we also added the fast foods from the west to our dinner table. This has to lead to the obesity crisis in the urban localisations, though globally we are not considered fat.
High carb, fried, suggary food was the past menu, time has arrived to get rid of them.
Though India is not a fat country, its average BMI is 21.7 (by 2018), so how come we are getting the western disease. In India, the phase of diabetes is a skinnier one. In the western world, people get diabetes at an older age with higher weight, while in India it is the opposite. Guess, why?
BMI index is generally regarded as a parameter to calculate your health stats. This happened when in the 1940s, a statistician in Metlife came with the data analysis result, which concluded a direct correlation between BMI and life expectancy.
Dr. Yajnik, a researcher on this problem, came up with a surprising result, Indians are generally thin, but they have a higher Fat %. Here is the Y-Y paradox, his research findings, which changed the view of the whole world.
From this picture, we can see that both the person have the same BMI index, but hugely variant Body Fat %. So why does it happens that we Indians have a higher fat percentage, the source of all evil, and what we can do eradicate this problem?
Reason 2: It is in your genes
Contemporary, Indian babies are malnourished as compared to the western babies at the time of birth, and they grow up eating the same fast food, which makes them more likely to get obesity based diseases; compared to their western counterparts.
Kids are far more sedentary than they used to be — the pressure to study and do well in school is more intense than ever — and whatever little spare time they have is spent these days on video games, mobile phones, or Facebook.
Moreover, it has been found that most of the women in India are malnourished at the time of pregnancy, which is the reason why Indian babies are skinny by default.
Hence we can summarize that malnourished mothers, ignorance on the health of the kids as well as bad food habits as adults are contributing to the rising number of diabetes cases. But for sure we can do a lot to solve them.
Here are some of my suggestions:-
Solution
- Manage your body fat %, in contrast to the BMI index,
- Go for regular health checks, not only while joining some organizations.
- Reduce your blood insulin levels, which is a major cause of obesity in adults.
- Increase the vitamin B12 level to fight chronic diseases like diabetes.
I will talk about the solutions in more detail in my next article. Till then see ya.
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Reference: https://journosdiary.com/2017/06/08/diabetes-india-tamil-nadu/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGuED1JczbI
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