By: J. D. Heyes
Source: NaturalNews.com
The days of food and beverage makers hiding the gargantuan sugar content of high fructose corn syrup under the deceptive label of “corn sugar” are over following a U.S.Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decision that prohibits the Continue reading
By: D Holt
Source: NaturalNews.com
The use of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has been long associated with fatty liver disease, diabetes and increases in obesity, but a new study has investigated its effects on the brain. HFCS is an inexpensive ingredient added Continue reading
By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com
Diet myths abound in the health industry, but one of the biggest myths of all is the idea that a calorie is a calorie, no matter where you get it from, or what the chemical or nutritional makeup Continue reading
By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com
In the United States, where two-thirds of all states already have obesity rates exceeding 25 percent, and 12 states now have obesity rates over 30 percent, it is shocking to hear that these rates may actually be underestimated.
But Continue reading
By: Derrell Jones
Source: NaturalNews.com
The issue of weight is a prevalent source of discontent especially in western cultures. It seems that we havewoken upand realized that weight control is about much more than keeping up appearances. Obesity rates have skyrocketed along with Continue reading
By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com
Evidence is mounting that sugar is the primary factor causing not just obesity, but also many chronic and lethal diseases.
Dr. Robert Lustig, one of the leading experts on childhood obesity, and arguably the number one enemy of the Continue reading
By Andreas Moritz
Children often fall ‘accidentally on purpose’ if their bodies require a boost of immunity. A wound that becomes infected due to dirt very often serves as a quick self-help method to stimulate the immune system and further increase the Continue reading
By Andreas Moritz
People started gaining weight ever since life became more and more convenient. When modern amenities were introduced, life became sedentary and we simply got less exercise. But that’s stating the obvious, isn’t it? Unfortunately, it is much more subtle Continue reading
By Andreas Moritz
There are only two reasons I can think of that account for the huge success of weight-loss surgery in the United States – the Western world’s obsession with quick-fix solutions due to an unwillingness to adopt an approach that Continue reading
By Andreas Moritz
Protein Storage – A Time Bomb!
Obese people have both high concentrations of fats and excessive amounts of protein in the blood. The blood’s tendency towards clotting, considered to be the greatest cause for heart attack or stroke, stems almost exclusively from the saturation of proteins in the blood. (Note that smoking also increases blood protein concentrations, as shown below). Fats, on the other hand, have no blood-clotting ability. In their attempt to avert a heart attack, the capillary cells absorb the excessive protein, convert it into collagen fiber, and store it in their basal membranes. Although this emergency response has a blood-thinning and, therefore, life-saving effect, it also makes the blood walls thicker and more vulnerable to injury.
Continue reading
By Andreas Moritz
More than two-thirds of the body’s immune system is located in the intestines. And since it takes care of both physical and mental toxins, it acts as our physical and mental healing system. Obesity, including lumpy cellulite, is one of the many conditions that results from a congested lymphatic system,which forms a large part of the body’s natural immunological defenses. Other diseases include multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and cancer, the ultimate defense against toxins.
The lymphatic system and how it works
But what exactly is the lymphatic system? Imagine a network of drains flowing through your internal organs, taking away toxins from your tissues, blood and cells. The drainage system is filled with fluid containing cells that transport, attack and destroy poisons such as metabolic waste, undigested food particles, animal proteins, chemicals from drugs and processed food, cellular debris, and excess fluid from the extracellular spaces or the spaces between cells.
Parts of this drainage network are located in different parts of the body including the bone marrow, thymus gland, spleen, appendix, tonsils and adenoids. The lymph tissue in different parts of the body is connected by a network of vessels called lymph vessels. These vessels pass through purifying centers called lymph nodes that are located in the underarms, neck, chest and abdomen.
The lymph – 6 to 10 liters of lymph vis-à-vis 3.5 to 5 liters of blood – moves through the lymph nodes, which act as active purification centers. However, when the lymph fluid and immune systemare overwhelmed by poisons and decomposing material from the small intestine and liver, the body loses its ability to purify itself.
Intestinal problems due to eating harmful foods
Most intestinal problems occur because of eating harmful foods. The following foods or cooking processes have strongly irritating effects on the protective mucus lining present throughout the alimentary canal, from the mouth to the anus: devitalized, processed, radiated, refined, deep-fried, microwave-cooked and canned foods.
Highly acid-forming foods such as meat, fish, poultry, eggs, cheese, refined sugar, table salt, chocolate, candy, commercial fruit juices, coffee, alcohol, carbonated beverages and oral hallucinogenic and pharmaceutical drugs also irritate the intestinal lining.
Since the body cannot digest and utilize anything that is potentially harmful, these products undergo biochemical transformations, known as fermentation and putrefaction.
Studies have indicated that processed and refined foods along with alcohol and red and processed meats are a lethal combination. Not only does a diet rich in these foods promote lymph congestion and obesity over a period of time, it is also associated with an increased risk for many types of cancer- including breast, colon and pancreatic cancer.
These foods are highly acidic and have an excess of ‘fire energy’. Conventional Western nutritionists call these foods ‘heaty’, while Chinese and other forms of natural medicine, believe they produce an excess of ‘fire’ energy.
Think for a moment about the metabolism of an overweight individual. Excess weight raises the body’s temperature, not because the extra fat traps heat but because body’s organs needs to work harder to adjust to the weight. Even at rest, an overweight individual generates more heat than a body of normal weight. If you have a tendency towards being overweight, eating foods that are high in ‘fire energy’ could be a recipe for obesity and digestive problems.
Even in individuals who are not overweight, regular exposure of the intestinal lining or our ‘internal skin’ to acidifying and irritating components as the phosphoric acid and other chemical additives contained in colas, for example, can lead to suppurating wounds and the perforation of the intestinal walls.
What happens to undigested food?
Did you know that waste products from undigested food can linger in the intestinal tract for weeks, months and even years? Food that is eaten either too quickly, in between meals, late at night, or wrongly combined, lowers Agni, the digestive fire. Anger and fear also lower Agni. In an unhealthy intestinal tract, mucus, toxins and fecal matter combine to create what Ayurveda calls Ama or mucoid fecal matter. The intestines begin to lose their natural shape as they try to accommodate the extra waste. Left with no other choice, they create protrusions that are filled with layers of obstructive Ama which is a breeding ground for parasites and microbes, as well as for cancer cells. Eventually, the intestinal immune system succumbs to the overload of toxins.
Deadly microbes or harmful bacteria that are normally kept in check by the probiotic or ‘good’ bacteria begin to take over the digestive tract. These microbes quite literally turn everything they find into poison.
Not surprisingly, a badly congested lymphatic system leads to swelling of the abdomen and congestion in other parts of the body. In a desperate attempt to prevent the blood from being poisoned, the body begins to harden the afflicted tissue. This is the first stage of ulcerative processes. Later, layers of hardened mucus are added, forming a thick crust around the afflicted areas. This creates further rigidity of the intestinal tract, which in turn begins to obstruct blood circulation in the intestinal wall slows down intestinal motion.
Eventually, when the immune system is completely overwhelmed, the body suffers from a toxicity crisis. Obesity is nothing but a toxicity crisis. Any attempt to reverse these destructive processes that have virtually taken over requires the body to undergo a process of detoxification.
The obesity-cancer link
Obesity and cancer are both linked to severe lymph congestion,and over the years, more and more studies have been cropping up strengthening the correlation between the two diseases.
One such study, by scientists of the University of Geneva, found a connection between obesity and tumors in the breast. The sample consisted of women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in Geneva between 2003 and 2005. The scientists found that the women who were obese were more likely to suffer from Stage III and Stage IV tumors with an odds ratio of 1.8. In other words, they were 180 percent more likely to develop serious breast cancer than the women who were not overweight.
Also, the obese women in the sample were 510 percent more likely to have cancerous lymph nodes, suggesting that the cancer may have spread to other parts of their bodies.
Other researchers suspect that the hormone leptin could be a ‘missing link’ between obesity and cancer. Leptin, produced in fat cells in adipose tissue, is also known as the satiety hormone, which tells an individual when to stop eating. But this is not all that leptin does. This hormone is also involved in many other biological processes in the breast, from reproduction and lactation to cell differentiation and cell proliferation. When leptin or its receptors malfunction, they are likely to promote the development of breast tumors, some scientists say.
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This is an excerpt from my book FEEL GREAT, LOSE WEIGHT
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page
By Andreas Moritz
Obesity is a result of toxicity
Our physical health and well-being are more intimately connected to our gut and bowels than we may think. After all, that’s where it all begins and ends – with digestion and elimination and, of course, everything in between. To put it simply, what we take in, how we process it and what we keep inside rather than eliminate have everything to do with the diseases we suffer from. Obesity is one of the more direct and obvious consequences of being driven towards what I call a ‘toxicity crisis.’
The mind-body connection
Add to this the mind-body connection and it lends a whole new dimension. The very same processes apply to the human mind – the thoughts and feelings that preoccupy us, how we deal with them and the things we find hard to let go of and that build up as emotional toxins.
In a perfect world, the mind and body would act in tandem to produce health and happiness. But what happens when the intestines and lymphatic system get polluted and congested?
Obesity is usually the result of internal pollution and congestion starting with the liver, small intestine, bowel and finally the lymphatic system. Of course, it is a little more complex than that but there is no escaping the fact that individuals who are overweight are actually poisoning themselves.
What the ‘experts’ say
Conventional weight-loss experts would have you believe that it is the food you eat and amount of exercise you get that determine whether you are overweight or not, and how you can shed the extra pounds. It is called the ‘calories-in, calories-out’ approachto weight loss. These ‘professionals’ suggest that you adopt complex and sophisticated diets and they even have impressive mathematical formulae to count the calories you gain and lose at every stage. Throw in some common-sense advice about regular eating habits and sleeping well and often you end up with the perfect weight-loss plan. Or so they would have you believe.
While it is a fact that the food you eat is critical in determining whether you stay healthy or not, burning fat or calories through vigorous exercise is absolutely unnecessary. Neither is pushing the limits of physical endurance, which is brutal and suggests that you care very little for your body.
Most of all, conventional weight-reduction programs address only what you see, that is, the symptoms of disease – a fatty roll under the diaphragm, belly fat, ‘love handles’ and cellulite on the upper arms and thighs. Of course, there is a different set of exercises for every body part that has piled on excess adipose.
What these weight-loss programs fail to address is the cause of obesity. Why does the body feel the need to put on pounds? What is it defending itself against? And what kind of toxicity crisis is it reeling under?
The dynamic energy that helps digest our food
Powering our very existence is the life force or chi or Prana, digesting your food is Agni or the digestive fire, and determining the movement of fluids and energy in your tissues, organs, muscles and bloodstream are the three doshas - Vata, Pitta and Kapha.
Each dosha is distinguished from the other by its type of energy, the biological processes it governs and natural rhythms and cycles.
Disturbances in the natural energy that flows through your body and keeps you alive cause imbalances in digestive functions, waste disposal and immunological processes. This eventually leads to a state of internal pollution and congestion.
The beginning of obesity, its true causes
When the liver, stomach, intestines, bowels and lymphatic systems accumulate toxins, they get poisoned, they harden, they get distorted, and they lose their natural shape and functions in a futile attempt to adjust to this new but unhealthy internal environment. This is the beginning of obesity,gastrointestinal problems and a number of other diseases like cancer. Before we explore these processes and the consequences of their malfunctioning on obesity, let me tell you something that might surprise you.
Did you know that gallstones can lead to severe back pain? Not only does a severely congested gallbladder lead to a fatty liver and the accumulation of weight around the midriff, it also causes spasmodic pain attacks in the back region.
Is it purely coincidental that over 60 percent of Americans are estimated to have back problems and about the same percentage of Americans are overweight? Both conditions are characterized by a digestive system that is malfunctioning, choking, backing up and in distress.
As you see, the root causes of many symptoms and diseases, even obesity, are often not obvious. There is a supreme logic and rhythm to every biological process and the interactions between all of them. But addressing them in a symptomatic way as allopathic medicine does, separates you even further from the cause.
The human body is constantly searching for equilibrium. When things are out of gear, the body then tries to compensate by quite literally bending itself out of shape. This happens till it can no longer take the overload – the toxicity crisis boils over – and manifests itself as disease. Once you understand how illness, and even obesity, is ‘created’, you will also understand how to reverse it.
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This is an excerpt from my book FEEL GREAT, LOSE WEIGHT
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page
By Andreas Moritz
What would you say if I told you that obesity is a state of mind? Let me put it this way. Obesity has as much to do with storing fat as it has to do with your perceptions of yourself and the world around you. This is a vital link – perhaps the most vital link – that conventional medicine missed. Lots of people live toxic lifestyles, not only individuals who are obese, it’s just that different bodies adjust and react to toxicity in different ways. Individuals who are obese tend to store physical as well as emotional toxins in their fat cells.
What you think, how you perceive yourself and others, and the basic assumptions and premises by which you live have a profound effect on your weight. I have elaborated on the subject and discussed destructive thought patterns, carrying the baggage of emotional traumas, the stress response, and one’s negative beliefs about being overweight.
For any type of real physical, mental or spiritual healing to take place, you must make an important decision, perhaps one of the most important you will ever make. Depending on which way you look at it, it could also be one of the easiest or one of the most difficult decisions you will ever make. It is a decision to become emotionally whole, or simply, a decision to heal yourself.
It is a demonstrated fact that techniques of physical, mental, and spiritual healing cause physiological changes in the brain and other organs. That is because our thoughts, beliefs and emotions are stored not only in our cerebral cortex but also in our cells and tissues via complex neural pathways powered by chemical messengers called neurotransmitters.
Though natural healing techniques impact on this cellular memory, remember that this journey starts in mind – with a decision you have made to heal yourself, to clearly see the mind-body connection at work and to rely on your innate wisdom to cure yourself.
If you would prefer to start with baby steps, begin by creating the time and space to access your healing force. Simply spend some quiet time by yourself every day, perhaps in the park or even sit up in bed when you wake up every morning and before you sleep every night and ‘empty’ your mind.
Repeat this for a few days and you will already begin to feel the difference! Detoxifying you mind in this way will instantly relieve stress. This will, in turn, start the positive loop you need to take the power of internal healing even further.
Different things work for different people. So find your own stress-busters, such as a walk around the block after your evening meal, playing with your pet, watching the sunset or even sitting with your feet up and doing absolutely nothing.
Once you begin to experience the benefits of these simple practices, you will embrace an attitude of relaxation rather than the stress-filled life so many people are almost addicted to. You might then want to explore other systems that re-balance and unite the mind and body such as progressive relaxation, deep breathing, meditation, and yoga.
Remember, being overweight is indeed a state of mind.
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This is an excerpt from my book FEEL GREAT, LOSE WEIGHT
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page
By Andreas Moritz
Enemy Number One of the overweight or obese individual is processed foods including fast food, ironically billed as saviors of the 21st century. Breakfast cereals, energy bars, TV dinners, hamburgers, chili dogs, pasta, puddings and baked chicken. You pick them off the shelves, peel off the wrapper, eat most of them on the move or put them in the microwave.
They are time-savers, they are delicious and, why, they are even ‘nutritionally enriched’. At least, that’s what the label says.
If you can get ‘all you need for a healthy start to your day’ in a bowl of breakfast cereal, you couldn’t ask for more, right? Not so fast. Falling prey to smart advertising spiel and convincing product packaging are more than 75 percent of Americans, whose breakfast consists of bright and colorful cereals.
Hiding behind labels such as ‘whole grain’, ‘high-fiber’ and ‘nutritionally enriched’ are a bag of chemicals – present in all processed foods – dumping chemical toxins into your body.
Starting with your liver, kidneys, small intestine, large intestine or colon and connective tissue, these chemicals – artificial coloring agents, preservatives, food flavoring agents, refined sugars, refined grains, trans fatty acids and even fiber from bran – breakfast cereal could be escalating weight gain and taking your body to a toxicity crisis.
This is easily understood when we take a look at how the body deals with any type of toxin that enters the digestive system. The link between processed foods and weight gain is the liver.
This organ is tasked with more than 500 different functions, two of which are detoxification and burning fat. Apart from neutralizing and rendering toxins harmless, the liver passes on some of the toxins to the colon for elimination. It stores the rest to prevent them from entering the bloodstream.
So the more unnatural chemicals you consume in processed foods, fast food and junk food, the greater the need for detoxification. Your liver is now burdened with this role and is left with little time or energy to burn fat or carry out its other responsibilities.
According to some estimates, three quarters of the average individual’s liver is used to store toxins that the liver was unable to render harmless.
When the liver can store no more poison, these chemicals begin to back up into the bloodstream, which sets off another series of harmful reactions in other organs and tissues including the brain.
Apart from promoting weight gain, these additives and preservatives then lead to diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, asthma and neurological disorders.
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This is an excerpt from my book FEEL GREAT, LOSE WEIGHT
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyperlink back to the web page
By Andreas Moritz
It is not necessary to be a vegetarian to enjoy the benefits of an Ayurvedic diet and lifestyle. However, a balanced vegetarian diet is often considered necessary, particularly when the body is afflicted with disease. Vegetarians have believed all along that living on a purely vegetarian diet can improve health and one’s quality of life. More recently, medical research has found that a properly balanced vegetarian diet may, in fact, be the healthiest diet. This was demonstrated by the over 11,000 volunteers who participated in the Oxford Vegetarian Study. For a period of 15 years, researchers analyzed the effects a vegetarian diet had on longevity, heart disease, cancer and various other diseases.
The results of the study stunned the vegetarian community as much as it did the meat-producing industry: “Meat eaters are twice as likely to die from heart disease, have a 60 percent greater risk of dying from cancer and a 30 percent higher risk of death from other causes.” In addition, the incidence of obesity, which is a major risk factor for many diseases, including gallbladder disease, hypertension and adult onset diabetes, is much lower in those following a vegetarian diet. According to a Johns Hopkins University research report on 20 different published studies and national surveys about weight and eating behavior, Americans across all age groups, genders and races are getting fatter.
If the trend continues, 75 percent of U.S. adults will be overweight by the year 2015. It is now almost considered the norm to be overweight or obese. Already more than 80 percent of African-American women over the age of 40 are overweight, with 50 percent falling into the obese category. This puts them at great risk for heart disease, diabetes and various cancers. A balanced vegetarian diet may be the answer to the current obesity pandemic in the United States and many other countries.
Those who include less meat in their diet also have fewer problems with cholesterol. The American National Institute of Health, in a study of 50,000 vegetarians, found that the vegetarians live longer and also have an impressively lower incidence of heart disease and a significantly lower rate of cancer than meat-eating Americans.
What we eat is very important for our health. According to the American Cancer Society, up to 35 percent of the 900,000 new cases of cancer each year in the United States could be prevented by following proper dietary recommendation. Researcher Rollo Russell writes in his Notes on the Causation of Cancer: “I have found of twenty-five nations eating flesh largely, nineteen had a high cancer rate and only one had a low rate, and that of thirty-five nations eating little or no flesh, none of these had a high rate.”
Could cancer lose its grip on modern societies if they turned to a balanced vegetarian diet? The answer is ‘yes’ according to two major reports, one by the World Cancer Research Fund and the other by the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy in the United Kingdom. The reports conclude that a diet rich in plant foods and the maintenance of a healthy body weight could annually prevent four million cases of cancer worldwide. Both reports stress the need for increasing the daily intake of plant fiber, fruits and vegetables and reducing red and processed meat consumption to less than 80-90 g.
If you are currently eating meat on a regular basis and wish to change over to a vegetarian diet, unless you suffer from a major cardiovascular illness, do not give up all flesh foods at once! The digestive system cannot adjust to a substantially different diet from one day to the next. Start by reducing the number of meals that include meats such as beef, pork, veal and lamb and substituting poultry and fish during these meals. In time, you will find that you are able to consume less poultry and fish also, without creating strain on the physiology due to too rapid an adjustment.
Note: Although the uric acid content of fish, turkey and chicken is less than in red meat and, therefore, not quite as taxing to the kidneys and tissues of the body, the degree of injury that is sustained to the blood vessels and intestinal tract from eating these coagulated proteins is no less than it is with the consumption of meat.
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This is an excerpt from my book TIMELESS SECRETS OF HEALTH & REJUVENATION
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyperlink back to the web page
By Andreas Moritz
Approximately 16 million people in the United States are diagnosed with diabetes based on national statistics. In reality, through, this figure is much higher. It is estimated that another 5.4 million people have the disease and are not aware of it. Type II diabetes, also called adult onset diabetes, now appears routinely in six year old children. Minorities are at particular risk, as their diet consists mainly of cheap fast foods, such as hamburgers, fried chicken, pasta, potatoes, refined sweets and other highly processed foods and beverages.
These foods typically cause a rapid increase in blood sugar, which stimulates the production of large quantities of insulin. When there is too much insulin in the blood, the body reacts by producing the chemical somatostatin, which suppresses insulin release. In due time this natural response translates into diabetes. Compared with Caucasians, African Americans have a 60% higher risk of developing diabetes and Hispanics have a 90% increased risk. Considering the large number of undiagnosed diabetics, physicians are now losing more patients to diabetes than they are diagnosing.
An increasing number of American adults diagnosed with diabetes are obese, U.S. officials said in November 2004. A study by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention found that between 1999 and 2002, 54.8 percent of diabetics over the age of 19 were obese. That compared with 45.7 percent in the same age group between 1988 and 1994. When the category was expanded to include diabetics who were obese or overweight, the percentage surged to 85.2 percent in 1999-2002 compared with 78.5 percent in the earlier period. About 69 million people are obese or severely obese, according to the American Obesity Association.
In the CDC study, a person was considered overweight if their body mass index (BMI) – the most commonly used method for calculating if a person weighs too much – was 25 to 29. Anyone with a body mass index of 30 or greater was categorized as obese. Using the body mass index to determine risk for diabetes is not completely reliable and can keep these numbers lower than they actually are. Taking averages in human statistic analysis always ends up distorting the true figures.
A balanced Vata type, for example has a naturally lower weight than average. According to the body mass index, Vatas are underweight. Their bones are much lighter and they have very little body fat on them. If a Vata type adds 25 pounds of body weight, it can cause him serious health problems, but according to the body mass index, this extra weight would bring him up to the normal range. Kapha types, on the other hand, have a very heavy body structure already. They cannot afford to add even 25 pounds without causing them to develop a typical Kapha disorder, such as diabetes, heart disease, or cancer.
By removing the discrepancies that exist with currently used body mass calculations, it is likely that almost every diabetic is overweight or obese. Likewise, a person who is overweight or obese can actually be considered diabetic, or at least insulin resistant. Due to the accumulation of abnormal amounts of new cells in the overweight person, there is simply not enough insulin available to meet all the nutrient demands of these extra cells. And although the pancreas may still make a normal or a little extra amount of insulin, the added weight leads to a relative insulin shortage. Eventually, the pancreas suffers from being continuously over-extended. The side-effects of a relative insulin-deficiency can be just the same as an absolute insulin-deficiency where pancreatic cells stop producing insulin altogether.
According to the American Diabetes Association, diabetes accounts for 178,000 deaths (which may not be accurate), 54,000 amputees, and 12,000-24,000 cases of blindness annually. Blindness is 25 times more common among diabetic patients compared to non-diabetics. It is estimated that by the year 2010, diabetes will actually exceed both heart disease and cancer as the leading cause of death through its many complications. It is my hope that more and more scientists and doctors begin to see the strong link that exists between all these ‘diseases’. They are metabolic disorders that share a common cause, but show up as different symptoms.
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This is an excerpt from my book DIABETES – NO MORE!
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyperlink back to the web page
By: Ethan A. Huff
Source: NaturalNews.com
With the poor quality of many of today’s conventional meat products, a vegetarian diet just might be an appropriate fit for some modern children, one of three that are now overweight in the US.
A new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that people of all ages, including children, that adhere to a vegetarian diet generally have lower average body mass indexes (BMI) than others, and are generally leaner than their meat-eating counterparts.
The report explains that obesity is less prevalent among vegetarians, and that average BMI increases progressively higher depending on how much meat a person eats. Vegans, for instance, generally have the lowest BMI, while vegetarians that eat dairy and eggs have a slightly higher average BMI. Meat eaters, suggest study authors, have the highest average BMI of all.
Besides simply the visible weight benefits, adhering to a vegetarian diet may also improve lipid profile, say the authors, which means that a person is less likely to experience coronary heart disease. This means that vegetarians may have a lowered risk of developing high cholesterol, or having a heart attack or stroke.
Because a plant-based diet can contain far more nutrients, complex carbohydrates, fiber, and water, than a meat-based diet, it is more likely to promote lean body mass rather than added fat, says the team. The extra fiber found in plant-based diets also contributes to making a person feel “full” more quickly than a meat-based diet would, which results in less food being eaten.
“[O]besity represents a significant threat to the present and future health of children and leads to a wide range of physical and psychological consequences,” write the study authors. “(A) plant-based diet appears to be a sensible approach for the prevention of obesity in children.”
The report does not, however, differentiate between meat-based diets that include pastured meats, and meat-based diets that include conventional, feedlot-derived meats. The two differ greatly, as pastured meat contain higher levels of beneficial nutrients than does conventional meat, and is also higher in healthy fats and amino acids like omega-3s.
Also, when choosing a vegetarian diet, it is important to carefully select foods, especially when children are involved, that contain a full profile of necessary vitamins and minerals. Some vegetarian diets lack crucial nutrients like B vitamins, vitamin D, zinc, iron, and calcium, as well as protein, which is essential for the growth and development of healthy muscle mass.
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