By Carl James
Dietotherapy and obesity control in modern society is a concern for many. If the truth be told, the most significant changes in living and behaviour adopted by modern civilization are the impoverished nutritional habits of western diet that happened to spread to many other cultures which have a close relationship with technological development.
History tells us that over the centuries, the population was guided by a particular kind of nutritional standard.
Regular diet was often based on cereals like rice, corn, wheat, millet and rye. These were the type of foods that make them feel full for a long period of time and provide lots of energy.
Dietotherapy is the scientific regulation of diet in treating disease, especially important in patients with inborn metabolic risk factors of imbalances and various other metabolic diseases.
It is a known scientific fact that genetics play a determinant role in the cause of obesity.
However, diet, exercise, and lifestyle can determine whether or not the disease is developed and to what extent it may take control of our life.
In former times, the essential proteins that our body need for optimum performance basically came from vegetables like beans, lentils and chickpeas. To a lesser extent, other cultures would obtain them from domesticated animals, fish or games.
Another essential ingredient is fat. In warm climates fat would also come from vegetables like dried fruits and nuts and oil. But in colder areas they were secured from marine animals or other animal products like lard, butter or pork fat.
The first big shift in nutritional habits came at the coming together of two civilizations of Europe and America.
Starting somewhere around the sixteenth century and onward, there was a productive exchange of culture that did not exclude many new nutritional ideas.
The traditional style of eating included cereals that required a lot of chewing and leave you feeling satisfied and supplying the cells with enough energy to work without feeing tired quickly.
This type of eating was replaced by the American potato that popularized the world in record time, and had a tremendous difference in the nutritional habits of human being all over.
Those changes no doubt had some positive consequences in the standard of living, but on the flip side they led to certain behaviour and health related disorders.
In exchange, European domesticated birds were introduced to the Americas, along with barley and wheat, the vine and many other types of fruit trees.
The fast pace microwave culture has significantly impacted dietotherapy and obesity control.
The outstanding advances made by chemistry and other sciences from the end of the nineteenth into the first half of the twentieth century, took us to an over valuing of the importance of “pure” – refined – food, animal protein and fat.
A lot of us seem to think that the whiter the flour the better it is. The truth is, it actually has less, and is less healthy and nourishing because most of the essential vitamins and fiber have been removed, and that is the case with most whole-grain cereals.
One undeniable linkage between dietotherapy and obesity control in today’s eating habits is the replacement of whole-grain cereals with refined foods that are genetically altered.
Most of the foods we pick up in the supermarkets today are genetically modified without any of us having a clue which is. These foods are manufactured to be bigger, sweeter, and to be more resistant to pests. They also taste sweeter because genetic engineering has increased the sugar content of many fruits, vegetables and grains.
Sweet sugary foods are one of the main reasons for being overweight. The picture is now becoming clearer with dietotherapy and obesity control. These sugars in your blood make you crave for more food of the kind and disrupt your blood sugar levels.