Trading life for lifestyle!

The main theme of the article is very sobering. The so-called Western life style is not kind to us at all. We are trading our 'life' for 'lifestyle' and feeling very content to do so without knowing the consequences.

The writer has a theory, which I heard before. The genetics of the people of the erstwhile-colonised countries were used to the lean and good harvest cycles. In good harvest year they would eat somewhat sufficiently but in lean harvest year they would starve or eat half stomach and the cycle would repeat. Never in their lifetime would they eat plenty.

These days when some of us are eating more than required in every meal, our bodies are reacting to the accumulated fat in a very strange way and all the previously uncommon diseases such as diabetes and heart ailment are becoming very prevalent.

I do not know how scientific these conclusions are. Some people would find a racial undertone in it. But there is no denying the fact that this tsunami style arrival of the previously uncommon diseases like diabetes is very closely related to our changed lifestyle which the article described in details.

Eating fast food has become a fad in our country. Eating out is considered as the sign of prosperity. Paying a visit to friends and families with a big box of sweets is our social obligation. We grew up reading story about of one our legendary leader's eating abilities. Torturing guests by pushing extra serving of food on the plate is still an act of hospitality.

We love our food and overdoing it is socially acceptable and encouraged. In Ramadan when we are supposed to restrain our food consumption, we try to eat more varieties of food and the prices go up.

What we eat has gone through a sea change also. For some, what used to be the menu of our occasional feast have become the stuffs of our routine intake. There is TV programme in Dhaka which would give us idea that the gift of our mental ability is related to the partaking a special pricey powdery food in a big bottle, even though that concoction is never consumed in the Western world.

Our celebrities are peddling food and products, which we do not need, nor those products are good for us. But the marketing machines of the multinationals are creating an aura of desirability for things, which make us helpless. Western nations have stopped drinking those sugar loaded drinks, which we have started drinking in earnest.

The tension of daily struggle is taking its toll also. An individual is quite helpless in these arenas of modern day gladiators. Anybody can get any disease for various reasons. This is not to implicate anybody. But as a society we have to set our priorities to tackle diseases which are closely related to our lifestyle and eating habits. Good news is that an individual and the family can still play a big role by sorting out the priorities of their life long before the killer disease like diabetes actually hits us.