It is a damn shame than in the USA we have an obesity epedemic in these modern times. With all the nutritional information in the world available in the palm of our hands through a smart phone, we can not as a nation figure out just how in the hell to lose all of these unwanted pounds. The additional burden we also face as Americans is no matter how you look at it, we as citizens are a large reason for the rise in the cost of our health care. We can blame politicians from the “other” party which we do not vote with. We can blame greedy “Big Pharma” and corporate medicine all day long. We can get pissed because every doctors visit cost so damn much every visit, but do you as an individual citizen ever just take a look in the mirror and take personal responsiility for your role in the cost of your health care? If you are obese, then surely you know it, and surely you realize that obesity will cause you significant health problems at some point. If you already have health problems as a result of your obesity, do you do anything about losing weight, or do you just hope that a pill or shot will make it all better so you can continue eating cheeseburgers and milkshakes every day for lunch? Are you proactive in your health, or are you entirely reliant on your physician to repair your ass when you break it?

Want to know what makes our obesity epedemic even worse? We are raising children who are also obese and they are having the ill health issues as many adults such as high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. We have so many fat and sedentary children today that the military for the first time in US history is having a difficult time meeting recruiting goals because our young Americans by and large, can not pass the basic physical requirements to even enter basic training. My fellow citizens, we owe our children much better than this.

Body Fat Deactivates Insulin and Raises Blood Glucose

Derived from The End of Diabetes by Joel Furman M.D.

• Free fatty acids circulating in the bood have a toxic effect, inhibiting energy production from muscle tissues, which then demand more insulin.
• Fat cells produce pigment epithelium-deprived factor, which then demands more insulin.
• Fat cells produce retinol-binding protein, which prevents insulin from activating glucose-carrying proteins.
• Trans fats and saturated fats can stiffen and distort membrane-located insulin receptors, interfering with efficient binding.

What does all of this mean for you? When you are significantly over weight or obese, when you carry excess fat at fifty pounds or more over your ideal body fat percentage, your body then demands huge amounts of insulin from the pancreas. Some of you really give your pancreas a workout when you require up to ten times more insulin than a normal weight individual. What do you think happens inside your body when this has gone on for ten years or better? Even worse, if you allow your child to be obese at these kinds of levels, think of how you are screwing their future health by the time they might be in their early twenties. How long can yours or your childs pancreas work this hard before it finally wears out? Face it, your pancreas is eventually going to crap out, it will lose the ability to provide insulin at the levels your obese body demands, which means less insulin will be produced at some point. With less insulin to transport glucose from the blood stream into your cells, your blood glucose levels begin to rise which means you have probably awarded yourself a good case of Type 2 Diabetes with your insatiable appetite for all that sugar and carbohydrates. Ironically, some obese folks still produce an excessive amount of insulin, however, it is not enough for them, even if that same level would be sufficient for a normal weight individual. Even if your over worked pancreas pumps out insulin which would be a good amount for a lean individual, it will not be enough to overcome the effects of the disease causing body fat. Your pancreas will eventually begin to shut down on you.

Sometimes we will know someone, maybe a friend or family member who is morbidly obese, yet does not suffer from Diabetes. Do not ever mistake this as something good as these individuals can have a large pancreas beta cell capacity, so they can produce high levels of insulin without becoming diabetic. Your ass may not be diabetic if you are morbidly obese, but, you are not in the clear. These high levels of insulin in the blood are a strong predictor of heart attack risk and a shortened life span. Obesity is going to catch up with you at some point. Whether a morbidly obese individual is diabetic or not, their high insulin levels are still damned dangerous to their lives. Know this, insulin levels are a better predictor of heart attack risk than cholesterol! It is common that people will wind up in an emergency room because of a heart attack and learn for the first time their blood sugar is elevated. These people are usually ignorant of the fact they have contracted diabetes. The first indication they had diabetes was a heart attack from years of havin a heightened insulin level. Damage was building up before the elevated glucose had become apparent to them.

Friends, it is one thing if you are an adult and do not care for yourself. However, as I have said many times over, “It is never just about you. Someone will have to bury your ass.” Now, if you are a parent, or a grand parent raising a grandchild, take a look at the children you care for. Are they of a normal weight, or rather at a healthy body fat percentage? If not, are you being proactive in doing something about it, or are you sitting them in front of the television with poptarts and soda pop to keep them quiet? If you have an obese child, do you love them enough to do something about it, or does a health initiative with said child interfere with your own unhealthy dietary habits you are not ready to change just yet? Do you care if your child becomes dependent on insulin shots, or even worse, if they keel over from a heart attack at twenty years old…

Let’s get proactive with our health and that of our childrens. Our future as a nation relies on raising healthy children to take our place in society once we pass on.