A Big Distraction

Published by World Audience Publishers

303 Park Avenue South

New York, NY  10010

www.worldaudience.org

©2017, Dan Galanto

ISBN: 978-1542693967

Edited by M. Stefan Strozier

www.mstefanstrozier.com

Copyright notice: All work contained within is the sole copyright of its author, 2017, and may not be reproduced without consent. The publisher and editor-in-chief of World Audience Publishers is M. Stefan Strozier.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means–graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval systems–without the prior written permission of World Audience except where permitted by law or in the case of reprints in the context of reviews. The information contained in this publication is intended to be educational and not for diagnosis, prescription, or treatment of any health disorder whatsoever. This information should not replace consultation with a competent healthcare professional. The author, owner and publisher are in no way liable for any misuse of the material.

Table of Contents

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Introduction..........................................................5

Chapter One: Obesity Burden....................................11

Chapter Two: Obesity Definition................................23

Chapter Three: Obesity Causes....................................31

Chapter Four: Obesity Outcomes...............................51

Chapter Five: Obesity interpretation..............................73

Chapter Six: Why Do We Care About Obesity?.................91

Chapter Seven: Utah’s Drug Problem...........................111

Chapter Eight: Why We Don’t Focus on Diet................125

Chapter Nine: Changing What We View as a Solution.......135

Chapter Ten: Childhood Obesity..............................145

Conclusion........................................................165

Citations...........................................................173

About the Author.................................................181

This book is dedicated to:

Susan Galanto

Victor Galanto

Maria Galanto

Introduction

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We all worry about being overweight. We want to make sure we are healthy and free from the social stigma associated with gaining weight. This is probably why weight loss books are so popular. In this book, you will find little advice on the process of how to lose weight. You will not find diet strategies, workout routine, eating for your body type or the latest fitness fad that guarantees results. You will instead learn to look at gaining weight from a different perspective and learn exactly what all the fuss is with obesity. The ideas in this book are not intended to tell you how to lose weight, but instead give you the tools you need in order to take control of your health and start to ignore the distractions you hear from various outlets every day. These distractions can misguide you on your weight loss journey and oftentimes do. Through my career in different health fields, I have formulated some opinions and have done some speculative ‘what ifs’ in response to what I’ve experienced in those fields. These opinions and speculations are in this book. I want to reinforce that the points brought up are intended to be thought provoking and not eliciting immediate action.

The way we currently think about obesity is inconsistent with the way we currently think about other health conditions. This makes us wonder how different our health as a nation would be if we thought about it another way. We think of obesity a certain way but think very differently about similar conditions for seemingly no reason at all. In other words, why do we give obesity a stigma but not other diseases or physical appearances?  Being overweight or obese is considered less attractive than being a normal weight. It is also thought to cause a myriad of health issues. As a result, we think of it as a point of focus, yet we aren’t consistent with this thought. We don’t focus on other signs or physical appearances as heavily as we think of obesity.

As a not-so-completely off topic yet somewhat arbitrary example: In darts, why do we always shoot for the bullseye? The bullseye on a traditional dartboard is 25 points and the double bullseye is 50 points. Yet if you were to look just above the bullseye you would find a space labeled for 20 points. Right in the middle of the 20 space you will find an area that is designated for a triple score. That area is worth 60 points: the greatest amount of points you can achieve with a single throw in darts. Yet no one ever shoots for it, we always shoot for the bullseye—unless of course you’re a professional dart player and know what you’re doing. In American football, a touchdown is worth more points than a field goal and teams often try and get as many touchdowns as they can because they’re worth more points. A three point shot is worth more in basketball than a two point shot and players shoot three pointers often despite it being much harder to achieve. This isn’t the case in darts.

Warning: math alert. According to the Professional Darts Corporation, there are two bullseyes in steel-tipped darts. A red double bullseye is the inner circle and a green single bullseye which is the outer circle. The Darts Regulation Authority rule book does not disclose the surface area of the dart board. Yet a quick internet research reveals the double bullseye has an area of 126.68mm² and the triple 20 space has an area of roughly 310mm². Therefore, if every square millimeter on the dartboard has an equal chance of being hit, you are twice as likely to hit a 60 point triple 20 as you are to hit a 50 point double bullseye. Not only do you get more points for your throw, you are more likely to hit the target! That seems like an easy decision. However, let’s say you are a bad shot and want to take into consideration that you may miss the triple 20 or the double bullseye and want to account for missing your target. The bullseye area in total is roughly 794mm². This includes both the single and double bullseye area. This means that if you happen to miss the double bullseye, you have a 669mm² area to hit to get 25 points.  If you aim for the triple 20 however, the total 20-point area is over 3700mm². This does not include triples or double areas but if it did, it would be closer to 3800mm². That means if you miss the double bullseye you have 669mm² to hit for 25 points but if you shoot for the triple 20 and miss you have 3700mm² left to hit for 20 points.

I think we can all admit that hitting a bullseye is a lot harder that hitting a 20. Going for consistent 20s is probably a much better deal for most of us than going for that one big double bullseye that won’t be as many points as a triple 20. Yet we don’t usually shoot for the triple 20. We shoot for the bullseye. You can’t hit a triple 20 and yell, Triple 20!  I suppose maybe you can but it won’t have the same effect as if you hit a bullseye and yelled Bullseye!

Everyone has their own reason for wanting to shoot for the bullseye instead of the triple 20. However, the most likely reason is that whenever you play darts, you’re out with your friends at a bar and you want to impress other people. No one is impressed by a triple 20 at a bar because it’s not considered cool. It’s not in the center of the board. But if you hit a bullseye, that’s a different story. That’s smack dab in the center of the board. Your friends may be impressed with your skill and accuracy since there is no way you can get more accurate than being smack dab in the center of a dartboard even though you can get more points if you were to shoot elsewhere.

It’s interesting how this works. We take certain things that culture or society teach us and believe them without question. We take them as common sense. But when we think about it, they may not be common sense after all. If we are focusing on hitting the bullseye because that’s what you shoot for in darts then we unfortunately ignore hitting something else that would be more advantageous. The bullseye, although cool to hit, is a distraction.

We’re focusing on hitting a bullseye when the more favorable target is ignored. This is how I feel about obesity and diseases associated with obesity. There is great stigma with obesity and a huge emphasis we give it based on the culture we live in. No one wants to be obese for fear of how others will view them and the diseases they are at higher risk for. We treat obesity like this because that’s just the way it is. Which is fine. I subscribe sometimes to the excuse of that’s just the way it is sometimes. But we aren’t consistent with this. We don’t treat other diseases like this. We don’t treat hives from bee stings like this. If someone who is allergic to bee stings got stung, we don’t see hives and start dousing them with lotion to prevent their throat from closing. We don’t treat nerve damage from diabetes like this. If a diabetic patient lost feeling in their foot, we don’t try to surgically implant nerves in their leg in hopes that we don’t have to amputate it. Yet we look at excess weight and try to reverse it in the hopes that it will prevent heart disease or other non-communicable diseases.

We don’t make fun of celebrities for how many dental cavities they have or if they have type one diabetes. But we do make fun of them if they have a little cellulite showing in their bathing suit. Sitcoms don’t depict people in high school teasing classmates for getting their tonsils removed or getting the flu but they do make fun of them for wearing a XXL t-shirt. This doesn’t seem consistent and in reality, obesity is not worth all this trouble. We say obesity is tied to many chronic potentially fatal diseases because people who are obese tend to develop these diseases more frequently than people who are not obese. But what if it wasn’t obesity that caused these diseases?  What if the factors that caused obesity were the same factors that caused the fatal disease? This would mean that obesity is the scapegoat and we’ve been focusing on the wrong attribute all along.

People who are obese seem like the victim in society today. But obesity itself is the real victim; being blamed for things it doesn’t cause. If that is the case, it isn’t worth being stressed over and spending money on trying to reverse it. Instead, spending money on other more useful means, to determine other possible causes, may do the world some good.

Obesity is the victim in society today and if we were to try and view this condition with a slightly different perspective, I believe many questions will be raised—questions that will hopefully lead to a different attitude towards beauty, health, culture, morals and more importantly, disease prevention. This book is intended to make the reader question the current societal and health standards surrounding obesity. Once this is done, the reader can formulate their own specific way of losing weight without being as vulnerable to the misleading propaganda that leads to multiple weight loss failures.

Like most weight loss products on the market today, this book will teach you a new and exciting way to lose weight—just not exactly through a weight loss pill, exercise routine or fad diet. Instead, I encourage you look critically at different causes of weight gain especially those that may not be typically thought of as causes for weight gain. Too much emphasis has been placed trying to reverse obesity and through this emphasis, I believe we have lost sight of how to go about preventing a disease when obesity is present. Instead of looking at obesity as a disease or a cause of disease, maybe instead we should be looking at it as merely a sign. We don’t treat signs or symptoms in health in order to cure disease, we treat root causes. In this sense, obesity is a big distraction. To lose weight, one must first ignore the distraction, which is easier said than done. Next, they must find exactly how they have gotten to the state they are in. Without a root cause, no cure can be found. Losing weight may be a more individualized secret than you may have been told.

Chapter One

Obesity Burden

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Obesity is a disease. It is in the same category as diabetes mellitus, cancer, addiction and heart failure. The word ‘disease’ is most likely associated to very harsh words in our mind. For example, if I ask you to think about the word ‘cow’ what comes to mind? Milk? Steak? Farm? What about the word ‘earth’? What comes to mind now? Sun? Solar System? Moon? Aliens? Take a few minutes to figure out what the word ‘disease’ means to you.

When I think of ‘disease’ my mind goes to: disabled, restricted, sickly, abnormal or wrong. You may have also thought about these words: pressing, emergency, serious, severe, and urgent. These are all words that we might categorize as detailing the importance of a disease. In other words, you might think of words that all have to do with how important a disease is. Maybe your mind goes to the names of actual diseases like cancer, heart attack, leprosy or others. These are all serious diseases.

I conducted a small survey amongst my personal trainer students in Boston, MA. I asked them what some of the words that came to their mind when they thought of the word disease. Some of the most common answers were illness, unhealthy, scary, and death.

We usually think of the harshest possible diseases. These are usually the ones associated with death. This is not necessarily a negative or insensitive reaction; it simply may just be the words most people will associate with the word disease. When someone is diagnosed with a disease like cancer or a heart disease, there is reason to be concerned with their wellbeing. These are severe and potentially fatal diseases with great importance.

When we think of disease, let’s not forget about diseases that can be considered non-fatal like fibromyalgia or multiple sclerosis according to the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation. Although these cannot themselves lead to death, they are limiting conditions and are also severe and important.

Obesity is believed to be just as severe and important in some minds. An excerpt from a 2000 edition of the Journal Nature states that Obesity should no longer be regarded simply as a cosmetic problem affecting certain individuals, but an epidemic that threatens global well-being.¹ It can decrease quality of life by placing excess stress on knees and make everyday tasks more cumbersome. Obesity can be fatal just like the effects of HIV/AIDS can be fatal. AIDS itself has never killed anyone, but it suppresses the immune system which no longer can fight off other diseases, therefore is a contributing factor in the death. On the same token, obesity may have never directly killed anyone either, yet its side effects place extra stress on the heart which may make a heart attack more probable. Any way you look at it, obesity is a disease and a serious cause for concern.

Or is it?

The definition of disease is a disorder in the structure or function of a living being. Obesity meets this criterion. Holding excess weight can put stress on the natural function of a human. It has been linked to disorders in the blood concentrations of hormones, function of arteries and could affect the pulmonary system as well.²-⁴ Baldness, you can argue, meets the definition of disease as well. The natural