The right weight

Grandma was reasonable in everything but this.

 

It’s not a game. Obesity has begun to charge very expense bills to our communities. Only in Piura Department, the medical statistics establish it is the first cause of heart diseases (stroke, arteriosclerosis) and diabetes. In fact, it occupies the second place across Peru in this condition prevalence, that treated out of time can be mortal.

 

The diet and the lack of physical activity are the recurrent causes, according to specialists. The usual food is ever made of rice, tubers, and fried or boiled meat and much spices, and beverages with much sugar and colorants that have replaced to the natural juices and refreshes.

 

Growing besides

In the other hand, the new lifestyle consists in spending long hours in front of the TV or the PC, many times interacting with other pairs virtually but forbidding spaces and moments of physical encounter. This frame is not supposed.

 

The medical doctors coincide that during the teenage, instead growing upside, we are growing besides. Also, they point out that the problem gets worse if we have haven a bad or deficient nutrition during our childhood, so we don’t gain enough height and the body trends to accumulate fat instead of mass.

 

The most optimistic medical forecast is that before 40 years old, many of us already will experience our first stroke or, at least, will have blood stream problems. And the problem is in rural and urban ccommunities, as well.

 

The lifeguard plan

There are actually ways to reverse the frame, and everything depends on a strong personal commitment with your health. Here we present you some useful ideas:

1. Eat according to your real energy requirement: Not all the people need the same wear, so a nutritionist (or specialist in nutriology) can advise us what we have to eat, how much quantity, what time, why and how to combine it in a healthy way.
2. Do exercise: World Health Organization suggests that, at least, 30 daily minutes at home, a park, or the gym, are ideal to improve all the body functions including the slow down of the cell aging.
3. Set your mind free: encourage yourself creatively to take out the stress by doing an activity that take your brain out of the routine, but that enriches it.
4. No vices: If you don’t find a way (or even if you have it clear), don’t run to the alcohol, the tobacco, the drugs, or something that generates you damages for your remaining lifetime. If you think it convenient, visit a mental health specialist for having a guide.
5. Try not to stick to the technology: It’s actually possible to live without it. It seems hard but what the advertising doesn’t say us is the continuous dependence to the electronic devices causes us sedentarism, so problems with our weight. The other part that the advertising doesn’t say us is that a kind of techno-addiction is developed.
6. Appreciate yourself: The key to be happy is loving because of who you are, not who you look like. But this doesn’t mean you uncare of yourself.
7. Choose a medical consultation: If the physical body has problems, or it doesn’t respond like it should, the best is looking for a medical doctor. The friends and relatives –unless they have a diploma in Medicine and be competent—can give ideas but not a professional opinion that can save our live. However, ever look for second and third recommendations to go to the right place.
8. Research and share: On the Internet, there is everything, and especially the information that will open you up a positive perspective to care your health. If you access those contents, study them, file them, discuss them, and share them with your people. Who knows – the fact that can improve the life of somebody else could come from you.

 

The model featured on this entry is André Verona and the photographs are © Marco Mejía.