Obesity, a medical condition in which excess body fat accumulates to the extent that it has adverse effect son health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems is a reality in urban India. Obesity increases the likelihood of various diseases, particularly heart disease, diabetes and bone weakening and is commonly caused by a combination of excessive food energy intake and lack of physical activity although a few cases are caused primarily by genes, medications or psychiatric illness. In the West, obesity is now recognized as a major public health issue and is increasingly being frowned upon which can be seen from the manner in which diet plans and weight loss programs are the most sold ‘products’. Not surprisingly, the reality of obesity in a country like India which has high statistics of people going hungry and remaining malnourished mirrors the extreme gap between the haves and the have nots. Then again, putting on weight is generally accepted as a symbol of wealth and fertility in India where social and cultural practices hinge on lavish food spreads, elaborate menus and a tendency to feed people. In fact, health experts state that Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in India, with morbid obesity affecting 5% of the country`s population. They state that India is following a trend of other developing countries that are steadily becoming more obese with various factors contributing to its spread starting from the lack of physical activity and eating unhealthy food. In a worrying trend obesity, which was earlier seen in people after their late 30’s, is now increasingly being seen in young children who are either prone to eat what is commonly called ‘junk food’, or processed food and packed food products that do not have adequate nutritive value but add calories and cholesterol.
Many explain the fixation of young children to eat packed food products due to the manner in which they are constantly ‘fed’ in various media outlets in the form of advertisements, by offering freebies like toys and games for free and building peer habits where children are made to feel as not acceptable till the time they eat similar food products as the rest. The food habits that children follow in their growing up years mostly follow them in their later years, which makes obesity a real risk for many. When it comes to children and their eating habits today, it is a fact that many are increasingly influenced by the never ending feed of advertisements in various media outlets which are aimed at glamourizing packed food products. Such advertisements mostly show children enjoying the said products or having a good time while eating them and often make claims about making children who eat them more liked and accepted by others. The other manner in which packaged food products are sold and advertised to consumers are through what are known as celebrity endorsements where popular actors and sportspersons are roped in to endorse a brand. In so doing, there are obvious contradictions, the best being when athletes and sportspersons are seen endorsing colas or carbonated drinks which has high sugar content and is hence not good on the cholesterol count, nor on dental health. Interestingly enough, when studies emerged that coals and carbonated drinks are unhealthy, there was an instant bombardment in the advertising world and in supermarket outlets of packaged ‘healthy fruit drinks’. Not many realize that these fruit drinks have a very high sugar content again or that they have preservatives that can have a negative impact on one’s heath and physicality.
All said and done, the emergence of obesity as a serious health issue in the country today goes side by side with abject hunger on the other. The 2012 Global Hunger Index ranks India in the 15th place from the bottom with nearly one-fifth of the country’s total population and 43.5 per cent of under-five children as malnourished. There is also the matter of food wastage where day in and day out, food components gets lost to the many who go hungry without access to one square meal a day. While it is true that poor transportation and storage facilities lead to food grains going waste and left to rot, there are tonnes of cooked food that gets thrown out. Clearly, a balance needs to be brought about in bridging the food divide that is increasingly widening in the country today.