Trans Fats

Finding an entirely uninteresting news story and to consider how it connects to my life. All the Indian News papers carried the News that US plans to ban trans fats. Good for them. Obesity is major worry for the developed world especially USA and Europe. Almost 35.7% of US population is obese as per CDC and the estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the U.S. was $147 billion in 2008 U.S. dollars; the medical costs for people who are obese were $1,429 higher than those of normal weight. As for 19 member states of the European Union data are available, the proportion of overweight and obese people in the adult population varied in 2008/09 between 36.9 % and 56.7 % for women and between 51 % and 69.3 % for men. In my country obesity is still in  a nascent stage as it is restricted only to higher income group people.

Trans fats are uncommon in nature but can be easily created artificially when liquid oil is treated with hydrogenated gas and made solid.  The long-lasting fats became popular in frying and baking and in household items like margarine, and were cheaper than animal fat, like butter. Trans fats lurk in many processed foods, such as microwave popcorn, certain desserts, frozen pizzas and margarine.

Why did the news seem uninteresting? Most members of my family or my community are not obese and we have different food habit. Now where it connects is that we have a major problem of median obesity or sometimes known as lean obesity. This makes us Diabetic Capital of the world. There is a significant rise in Cardiac complications too as we are going through a more sedentary life-style and are snacking more often. We also have high consumption of deep fries which are highly oily.So somewhere we all are so similar. Unable to check our tongue. Neither in talking nor in eating. One leads to emotional distress and quarrels, other to health issues. To add on to it there is trend in India to follow the life style of the US or European. We with our smaller built are more prone to the diseases which we could avoid just by avoiding certain wrong practices. Perhaps in Modern life we have forgotten Prevention is Better then Cure.

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