Human interests V Business interests

I’ve recently been banned from two internet forums: my voice is no longer heard.  And what sin did I commit?  Putting human interest before those of business.

Let me give you some background.  Many years ago I was a fitness coach, studied nutrition and, amongst my clients, there were many whose goal was weight loss.  I’ve also had close experience of people with eating disorders so, in some respects, food is important to me.

Whether somebody eats too much or too little the issue is the same: their relationship with food is out of balance.  And that’s a pretty big issue all on its own.  However, the more I’ve looked into this, the more I see an ever-widening gap between the human interest of people being healthy and business interests.  When I say business interests I mean the food industry (additives, fast foods and processed foods), the diet industry and the pharmaceutical industry.

Look at this scenario.  Additives and chemicals are added to processed foods.  Many of these such as sugars and sweeteners are addictive so people eat more and get fat.  As they get fat they develop health problems and so are prescribed drugs.  To get healthier they go on a diet.  Diets are not sustainable in the long term and they fail.  They get depressed and eat more and the vicious cycle begins all over again.  At the same time the food industry, drug industry and diet industry are just making bigger and bigger profits.

Based on my experience I put together an E-book explaining why dieting is not the answer and offering a plan that works.  As part of my research I’ve been frequenting dieting forums (who incidentally advertise a lot of different diets and I’m sure get paid handsomely for doing so).

So, my first ban came when I responded to somebody who said they were anorexic and wanted advice on the foods they were actually eating.  I dared to suggest that they seek help.  I was banned from the forum with no indication when I might be allowed back.

Close to that one my second ban came from a dieting forum.  This forum gets thousands of messages a day from people on diets.  The interesting thing is that a lot of them have been on diets for a very long time, bouncing from one to another, getting bigger and more depressed.  I have been advocating healthy eating as opposed to any commercial diet and guess what?  I get banned.  Underneath the message telling me I am banned is a reinstatement date.  Mine says ‘Never’.

When will we realise that putting business interests above human interests is a long term nuclear bomb?  When will individuals wake up, put down their fatty snacks and see what’s happening?  When will ‘now’ become ‘too late’?

Jackie Notman is a copywriter, feng shui consultant and e-commerce retailer.  This article is from her blog ‘Life – and everything else’ where you’ll find an eclectic mix of articles and information.

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Weight management – what your cat could tell you

The Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition in England has released research results on the feeding behaviour of domestic cats.  It found that healthy cats were automatically able to regulate their consumption of calories that would keep them at an optimal weight.  Even more interesting was that they also had the ability to eat the right types of food in the right proportions (carbohydrates, fats and proteins).  Their bodies knew what was right for them and they acted accordingly.

It’s not a huge leap to understand that humans have the same ability: our bodies know what we should be eating, how much we should be eating and when we should be eating.  However, the communication channels between our body (or subconscious mind) and our conscious mind gets a bit scrambled for many of us.

Add that to the fact that our conscious mind is drip fed messages from advertisers and the media and, if we are eating unhealthily at the moment then our bodies may be hooked on certain types of unhealthy food such as sugars then it’s not surprising that we don’t know what our body really wants.   In fact, we get to the point where we trust others rather than ourselves: the latest celebrity starvation diet is chosen over our body’s cries for help. 

When did everybody else’s opinion become more important than our own?  When did we start to dislike and disrespect our own bodies so much that we chose to abuse it and starve it of nutrients?

Your body is perfectly able to control its weight.  Your body is perfectly able to tell you what it needs to become and stay healthy.  Listen to your body, treat it with respect and it will repay you back by allowing you to enjoy an active, energetic lifestyle.  If only it was that simple!

Habits such as unhealthy eating are hard to break.  Addictions, such as sugar, are even harder.  The hole in our emotions that we try to fill become unbearable if we can’t fill them up with food.

Diets are not the answer.  Punishing yourself is not the answer.  Working with your body is the only answer. 

For a step by step plan that will help you break the habits, cut off the addiction and deal with the emptiness try Diets Don’t Work. 

Cats have got it right.  In fact, they could have written Diets Don’t Work but, of course they’re cats, so they can’t write – but they certainly know how to eat!

Jackie Notman is a copywriter, feng shui consultant and e-commerce retailer.  This article is from her blog ‘Life – and everything else’ where you’ll find an eclectic mix of articles and information.

WANT TO PUBLISH THIS ARTICLE?
You have permission to publish this article as long as the tagline (above) with links is included and no changes are made to the article. A courtesy copy of your publication or link would be appreciated.