Feed the world?

In the 1983 holiday season, pop musicians across the world joined together to form the charity super group Band Aid. Their goal was to raise money and awareness to fight world famine.

Today, their hit song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is still a holiday radio standard. And you can’t walk through the mall after Thanksgiving without hearing it at least once.

Which makes it all the more shocking that, almost 30 years later, obesity has actually become a bigger global health crisis than hunger.

That’s right. According to a recent report appearing in The Lancet, obesity rates have risen by 82 percent worldwide, affecting every country except sub-Saharan Africa. And the resulting health burden now outpaces that of hunger by a long shot.

True, people are living longer than once projected–by about 10 to 13 years, depending on gender, in fact. But according to this study, the quality of those extra years is abysmal.

Obesity-related conditions like heart disease and diabetes may not be death sentences any more. But they’re now leading causes of disability. And they’ve become sources of chronic pain and illness that consume the last 14 years of life, on average.

Obviously, this problem isn’t going away on its own. And the whole world is suffering because of it.

Something needs to be done.

This is the season of giving… to friends, to family, and to strangers in need. But don’t forget to set aside a special gift for yourself this year, too–namely, the gift of good health.

Follow my New Hamptons Health Miracle and make sure you squeeze in time for exercise whenever you can… because the responsibility for this obesity crisis lies with all of us.

And so does the solution.

Source:
Dellorto, Danielle. “Global report: Obesity bigger health crisis than hunger.” CNN 14 Dec 2012. Accessed at http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/13/health/global-burden-report/?hpt=hp_c1.