We are told that half the world is desperately battling malnutrition even as the rest is grappling with obesity. No one is quite sure whether India is still a developing country or whether it is a nation that has arrived; will depend on whether you listen to what some of those non-governmental organisations (NGOs) put out or what the government would have you to believe. At any rate, there appears to be a silent explosion in the number of rotund and chubby beings merrily rolling around in our midst.
If you are to tackle obesity, where do you go? Remember Raj Narayan, Health and Family Planning (Welfare) Minister in the post-Emergency Janata Party government, invoking lofty examples from the epics. He used to exhort rural folk to have smaller families and urge, “Look at Lord Ram, he had only two children.” Looking for role models from the past, way back in time, I am afraid, is bound to backfire.
Look at Kumbhakarna for one. Here is a hero who slept for six months in a year, and woke up to feast for the remaining six. Or how about Baka, the evil giant who used to eat up humans for brunch? Probably, Bhim, who slew this nemesis, is a good role model in this regard.
Okay, some may contend that west is still the best. Imagine gorging on food as those children in the Enid Blyton stories do. They polish off loads of scones, butter and what have you; certainly not icons for a boy who is trying to shed flab. Coming to the cartoon characters, Asterix and Obelix would have wiped out all
the wild boars in a forest if you gave them half a chance! Popeye needs acres of spinach gardens to satiate his morbid hunger for that leafy vegetable.
There has been some literature on whether fat “toon” characters make kids eat more, especially if meals are served while watching TV; it is the same culprit everyone is fond of pinning the blame on for too many of society’s ills. On the other hand, children were found to help themselves to fewer cookies after watching leaner cartoon characters. Some of these study findings are hard to swallow and harder still to digest!
So, wherein lies the fault? Much of our constitution is pre-determined by our genes. Cells in the adipose tissue stop multiplying and maintain a balance in numbers by late-adolescence. They swell up or contract depending on the state of the body’s metabolism. I remember one of my teachers in medical school saying in jest that being obese is one more bad thing your mother did to you. Again, partly true, especially if she had this habit of feeding you with canned milk and stuffing you with all sorts of branded weaning foods and made you tuck in more carbohydrates than was needed when you were a child.
All said and done, it is the multinational food and snack companies that mould our tastes in this day and age. They would have none of that Vidya Balan stuff, explaining in school-marmish fashion the need for sowchalayas and sanitation. They are indeed the masters of subtle seduction. They know full well that mothers are a vulnerable lot, and insinuate that unless junior imbibes a big tumbler of their health drink, he is bound to be out of the reckoning in a competitive world.
The war on obesity indeed appears to be a hard one to win. Educating people about the basics of good nutrition early enough in their life, and convincing them not to be deceived by cunningly crafted advertisements, seem to be the way forward if we are to have even the slightest hope of winning this “Battle of the Bulge.”
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