Obesity: Our Struggle
■ Scientific Findings :
Roger Bessis, Emeritus Professor at the University of Bourgogne.
Our social organization which takes into account our biological mechanisms and our cultural aspirations helps us to define right and wrong and consequently guides us. No one can escape from these tendencies, even those who want to believe that they belong to somewhere else. Every choice implies a non-choice. It’s either right or wrong. From the first step, one chooses to put a foot ahead. That polarity of life forces us to maintain its difference.
Our social example is based on growth. In every society, whether capitalist or communist, the degree of success is measured by its growth and it is compared to its inseparable corollary: inflation. In our minds, growth and inflation are naturally linked to swelling, obesity, and success. It’s the result of our activity.
Of course, we say no to the American social model. The planet’s newly born nation is not going to give us philosophical lectures! With their shock theories, they have taught us that big things are beautiful. We absolutely reject that notion. However, the forces that led to those theories are within us. The path that we are following is the same as theirs, and it is only the last step that we refuse to make. Those forces are present and we are subject to their consequences: obesity is all fields. We are going to try that generalization.
Biology, culture, and psyche: the architecture of obesity
Man is a human being among other human beings, from bacteria to whales. He is subject to his biological tendencies, including all his philosophies: to grow and to multiply. Compared to other human beings, he has an ability allowing him to push the limits of biology and reach his goals.
In our so-called developed societies, man has been multiplying, raising his age limit, life standards, weight, energy, and you know how priceless this energy that allows him to go beyond his muscular strength is. He increases his knowledge in order to decrease the factors that limit his growth. There is only one thing that does not increase, and it’s his intellect. When one reads the writings of ancient thinkers and philosophers, dating back a thousand or two thousand years ago, one is surprised by their analytical abilities, their perception of human and social forces, and their ways of having deductive reasoning.
In one word, one is surprised by their fine tuned spirit which is inherent to the human condition and which does not have anything to do with the current proliferation of knowledge.
The difference between an intelligence that allows choices in the world, in the relationships between human beings, and the knowledge that allows the growth and the weight of men on the world is very difficult to perceive for most of the world citizens. Obesity is watching us and it is lurking at us.
Wherever you look, everything that deals with human aspirations is MORE. More kilometres on the roads, more highways, more communication means of all kinds, more television, more computers, more cars, bigger and bigger, more comfort, more energy, but all this is driven not by necessity but by pleasure. All of this leads to propound a new scientific finding: Generalized obesity.
Roger Bessis, Emeritus Professor at the University of Bourgogne.
Throughout the years, what nature has accumulated during geological times is more, more and more food of course. An independent spirit would say: it is not because there is more food that we have to eat more. But where are those independent spirits? There are stubborn spirits, rebellious spirits, non-conformist spirits, but there are no independent spirits. To write, one needs a tool made by someone else. The independent spirit would have neither an entrance nor an exit. There must be strong opposition to change.
Here are the mitigating circumstances of obesity. Everything leads us to it. The social models that surround us are growing and why not our weight? No, it is not a pitch of obesity but only a way of understanding. We are pushed and only our will can restrain us. That is where nutritionists can help us. Our social model pushes us to gain weight and after that it tells us that we are responsible for our weight. It is incoherent and it explains a number of psychic disorders: we accept our weight but we become anti-conformist to hide our guilt, or we do not accept our weight and we live in pain, dissatisfaction and guilt. At the end of the road, there is the other extreme, anorexia.
Our society being as it is, external help would help us resolve a few problems. Like for all important issues in modern medicine, the symptoms will be treated. As for the disease, that is not the way we are going to handle it. Balanced social models where the goal of growth has disappeared do not exist yet. Even the “obsidian” situation within Indian reservations is not enough.
So why am I obese and what should I do? On an individual level, you have to follow the advice your nutritionists, taking for granted that they are good nutritionists. You will recognise them because they will give you the will to lose weight. Everything depends on your will and their ability to convince you. They are good psychologists; they are going to facilitate the set up of eating habits unknown to your environment. No, you will not go hungry. Yes, you will eat as much as you want of this and that, but be careful, the food associations you are used to are forbidden (see notes). One gets used to anything. After all, the fakir sleeps on a bed of nails right? We will show you how to handle pain. I said pain: It is because I am a bad nutritionist.
In our society, consumption, consumerism, growth, more of everything, allow us to understand some patterns in our minds but we do not offer an acceptable solution to get out of it.
Globalisation, which is essential not to increase our commercial exchanges, but to the global understanding that it’ll yield (after God knows how many wars?) its outcome: how many men and with what life standards?
Growth, which is our current mantra but despite our articulations, it’ll have to stop some day. How do we go from the necessity of stopping the growth and then reversing it? Our society does not allow us to. Nutritionists will have to know how to narrow it down. I said pain…And this is how there is obesity.
This text is written voluntarily under an esoteric form so that anyone could refer to images of their choice.
This is an example of how to express the idea of forbidding this or that food association:
- Exclusion of lipid and carbohydrates association
- Do not consume sugar and fat at the same time.
- Do not mix oil and honey.
- Crunchy and sugary food is forbidden.
- You should be ashamed of eating so many sweets.
- You are ashamed, so stop! You act like you do not understand and you are right.
Let’s go back to symbols. Meditation feeds the light within the hermit, doddery and valetudinarian, living deep inside his humid cave.