Losing weight - a new perspective
For some, maintaining a healthy weight may just be a matter of diet, exercise, and lifestyle.
For others, it may not be that simple.
Something is affecting an increasing number of adults today, and it is now beginning to affect the very young.
To understand what is happening, and how to deal with it, needs a new perspective.
Obesity in infants under 6 months has risen 73% since 1980, reported scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health. Why are infants experiencing excess weight gain at this early age?
Something is definitely wrong. What is affecting adults, is now beginning to affect babies, even before birth.
What is happening?
The Environmental Working Group’ shocked the scientific world in 2004 with in their discovery that the average newborn baby has 287 chemicals in the umbilical cord blood, 217 of which are neurotoxic.
For obese infants up to 6 months old, traditional causes of obesity do not apply, points out endocrinologist Robert Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco, “This is an epidemic of obese 6-month-olds. Since they’re eating only formula or breast milk, and never exactly got a lot of exercise, the obvious explanations for obesity don’t work for babies.”
Environmental chemicals, such as pesticides, as well as heavy metals, enter the human body through the food we eat, the air we breathe, and through our skin; they are also being stored in our fat cells. Scientists have discovered that this is one of the biggest contributory factors in excessive weight gain, even in infants.
Chemicals that these infants are exposed to include pesticides, phthalates, bisphenol A, flame retardants, and heavy metals such as mercury, lead, and arsenic. Heavy metals can directly or indirectly cause, contribute to, and even make worse nearly every disease or illness we know, for all ages.
“The evidence now emerging says that being overweight is not just the result of personal choices about what you eat, combined with inactivity … exposure to environmental chemicals during [fetus] development may be contributing to the obesity epidemic”, says Retha Newbold of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in North Carolina, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Recent developments
• Genetics are not to blame - the obesity rate of 50-60 years ago was only one-third of what it is today, explains Walter Willett, the chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard school of public health.
• Exposure to chemicals is to blame - “The chemicals these infants are exposed to have a broad range of negative effects on human biology, as they are neurotoxic (toxic to nerves), carcinogenic (cancer causing), and now it seems, obesogenic (causing excess weight).” Mark Hyman, M.D.
• Blood serum does not tell the whole truth - it has now been uncovered that the average person has 500 times higher levels of toxins in their bodies than what is revealed in their blood serum; certain chemicals such as DDT’s metabolic waste DDE is about 1,000 times higher in the fat cells than the blood serum levels.
One in four adult Canadians and one in 10 children are clinically obese, meaning six million Canadians are living with obesity.
Overweight or obese?
An adult male is considered overweight when his body weight exceeds the maximum desirable weight for his height, and obese when his body weight is 20% or more over this desirable weight. A similar guideline holds true for women, but the obesity threshold is 25% rather than 20%. Whether overweight or obese, the increase of overweight and obese Canadians over the past 30 years is now at an epidemic rate.
Excess weight – risk factors
The greatest concern is that excess weight is a leading cause of Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, and even cancer. Studies conducted jointly by researchers at Imperial College London and Harvard University, published in the medical journal The Lancet, show that obesity worldwide almost doubled in the decades between 1980 and 2008.
A 2005 report released by the Canadian government's Economics Division reported that "In 2004, approximately 6.8 million Canadian adults aged 20 to 64 were overweight, and an additional 4.5 million were obese”.
Complications for diabetics
Dr. Mark Sircus of Alto Paraiso, Brazil explains why the insulin receptor sites are sensitive to chemical poisoning,“Metals such as cadmium, mercury, arsenic, lead, fluoride and possibly aluminum may play a role in the actual destruction of beta cells through stimulating an auto-immune reaction to them after they have bonded to these cells in the pancreas.”
Weight loss challenges
Toxic chemicals and heavy metals are stored in the fat cells - people who have a higher body mass index may well be storing a proportionately greater amount of toxins. This is the body’s wisdom at work - it creates more fat cells to store toxic contents as well as retaining water to dilute toxic chemicals. Both of these strategies cause weight gain as a defence mechanism to protect vital organs from being poisoned.
Could this be the reason for weight gain? Individuals can gain 25 – 50 pounds in a year when acute toxin substances are stored, and not released.
Safe and gentle weight loss is vital. The solution isn't in ingesting more chemicals. According to Dr. Daniel Neides, medical director for Cleveland Clinic's Wellness Institute, in a recent interview with Bloomberg Business Week, the risks associated with weight-loss medication overwhelm their limited benefits.
Dr. Joseph Mercola comments on the fact that, as we are surrounded by many toxic chemicals, “it’s virtually impossible to completely avoid exposure. In addition to avoiding known toxic exposures, your best bet is to use a proactive approach to clean out your body on a regular basis.”
The solution - a new perspective
A life-time accumulation of toxins may well be why some are experiencing excess weight. By working with the body wisdom, our clients have been able to release their life-time accumulation of toxins safely and naturally by:
Releasing the toxicity being stored, and then
2. Losing weight, naturally.
Toxic substances in the body cause all sorts of health issues and illnesses. Many toxic people feel like they have the flu continuously. Toxicity affects all functions and activities in the body which has to detour vital healing energy to counteract and contain toxic poisons.
For more about toxicity and how it affects us, visit the Health section of our web site.
Kellyann
Topics: Weight gain, Heavy Metals, Toxicity, Losing weight, Obesity
