Overfat & Undernourished

When we hear that an individual is malnourished, most of us would picture someone who’s starving a wisp of a person who appears to be simply wasting away. Certainly, people who lack adequate nutrients and calories are malnourished, but malnutrition can exist even when calories are plentiful it just requires too much food with little nutritional value. So here’s a new word for your vocabulary: €œmalnubesity€. A merger of malnutrition and obesity sounds like a conflict in terms, but, in fact, malnubesity is real many of us are overfat and undernourished.

How did we get here? We need to look at our evolutionary history for an explanation. Our prehistoric ancestors needed to eat a lot of food in order to meet their calorie needs. For one thing, they were extremely active burning thousands of calories a day in their constant quest for food. And, their plant-rich diet didn’t have abundant sources of concentrated calories.

But in the modern world, our food supply is overloaded with highly processed, high calorie, appetizing foods that are lacking in vital nutrients. And since we have the neural pathways that encourage us to eat them and even reward us for doing so we’re more than happy to comply.

As a result, many of us have become overfed and undernourished. With a diet that supplies an excess of calories and a shortage of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, our health is going to suffer. A little extra padding is one thing, but malnubesity encourages fat to settle in places it doesn’t normally go surrounding vital organs, like the liver or pancreas, then forcing its way inside cells and significantly affecting how these organs perform.

We’re designed to be incredibly active, but our calorie needs don’t hold a candle to those of our ancestors. Many
of us work in situations that hardly require us to move at all. We’re also built to consume as much high-quality food that nature can provide, but we live in what’s been called an €˜obesogenic’ environment we’re surrounded by easyto- get, highly processed, high calorie foods.

This mismatch between our genetics and our lifestyle is what’s led to this paradox of malnutrition coupled with obesity. We eat exactly opposite of the way we’re supposed to. We should be taking in lots of plant foods and lean proteins that will maximize nutritional quality at a relatively low calorie cost.

And we’ve got to get off the couch, too. Most of us don’t burn 6000 calories a day but we sure eat as if we do.

If we want to lose weight fast, we need to understand what is the reason that cause us gaining weight. Thus after the explanation as above, calories is everything to control our weight. Thus to have a low calories food but with healthy diet, we can get it from the Herbalife meal replacement, Formula 1.

 

Article by
Susan Bowerman
MS, RD, CSSD. Susan is a paid
consultant for Herbalife.