Professional Documents
Culture Documents
FALL 2018
OFFSITE
THE WAVES
OF OUR TIME
Huge changes are happening in the world.
Some have been slow building, like climate change.
Other changes have been fast, like smartphones, that have
only been around for 10 years. Where will we be in 10 more years?
The rise in excess weight and obesity is slower than smartphones. Its origins
seem to be around the 1910s, people have been getting heavier since then.
It’s since the 70s that obesity overtook world hunger as a problem.
Now the developing world is getting this issue too.
“It’s hard now to remember how it used to be. Around the early
1970s, weight problems began to become more common because
food, almost suddenly, became more available, more affordable,
more calorific, and activity levels began to diminish…”
https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/health-wellbeing/diet-nutrition/diet-blog/2017/is-fat-the-new-normal
7.6
billion
people alive today
Source: http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight
7.6 2.3
billion billion
people alive today overweight
Source: http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight
“The obesity ‘epidemic’ is one of the most pressing contemporary
public health problems. However, in spite of good intentions, public
health and social marketing efforts have had virtually no effect on the
increase of obesity worldwide.”
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WHAT DOES EXTRA
WEIGHT MEAN?
DISEASE
With increasing BMI, increased risk of:
• Cardiovascular disease (today’s leading cause of death)
• Type 2 diabetes
• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Musculoskeletal disorders
• Many types of cancer (endometrial; breast; ovarian;
prostate; liver; kidney; colon)
http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight
“Since I was 18 I am having troubles with my weight, gaining and losing
40kg and everything in between multiple times. Now at age 47 I was
told I have diabetes type 2 and I had to go on medication… I do not
want to go blind, lose a limb or go on dialysis”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27423262
“I'm currently sitting by my Dad's hospital bed in the cardiac
ICU. He's here because of his weight.”
– LockeWatts on Reddit
SHAME
Individual behaviour corresponds to ~40% of
their health outcomes, but society blames you
for 100% of it.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1369-7625.2008.00490.x
“Fast forward a little more to last summer… We went to Florida for a
family reunion and all was well and dandy, oh except for about 1/4 of
the rides that I was too fat to go on. I have never been too fat to go on a
ride at an amusement park. I wanted to just crawl into a corner and die.”
– BuzzTheToy on Reddit
INFERTILITY
• Less chance of getting pregnant
(e.g. due to poly-cystic ovary syndrome)
https://yourfertility.org.au/for-women/weight-and-fertility/
(this one I’ll spare you)
THE GOOD NEWS
LOSE WEIGHT,
IMPROVE ALL THESE
PROBLEMS!
Increase fertility!
Cure diabetes!
LOSE WEIGHT,
a better start!