Biomarker 4 – Body Fat
The average sedentary 65-year-old woman is about 43 percent “adipose tissue,” the more scientific term for fat. Contrast that with the average 25-year-old woman’s body fat; it hovers around 25 percent. Men, by nature, remain somewhat leaner even as they age. For a man, we see average body fat of 18 percent at age 25, moving up to 38 percent at age 65.
Obesity Rates - Men and Women
Now the interesting thing is that obesity rates remained almost static until the emergence of the figures in the late 1970s. For years the rates had been reasonably static 15-20% for probably a hundred years. In the early to mid 1980s, coincidentally very close to emergence of the belief that fats in foods were very bad, the rates began to rise massively. Why was that?
We were being told to eat less animal fats and more so called “low-fat-spreads”. The fat in foods was often replaced by sugar and that is part of the problem – excess sugar leads to a gain in stored glycogen in fat cells. In my opinion the culprit is not fat but hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated fats and oils used in industrial food processing.
The estimates for 2010 suggest that for the UK that obesity rates for men and women will exceed 40% and including those overweight the overall figures come out close to 70% either overweight or obese.
Link the carrying of excess fat around the waits as one of the main indicators of elevated cancer risk and suddenly being overweight doesn’t just accelerate ageing but actively shorten life and reduce quality of life accordingly.
Reduce the fat content in our bodies and we should also see the reduction in the rate of ageing.
Tags: 1970s, Animal Fats, Belief That, Body Fat, Cancer Risk, Caption, Culprit, Emergence, Estimates, Excess Sugar, Fat Cells, Fat Content, Fats And Oils, Glycogen, Hundred Years, Hydrogenated Fats, Industrial Food, Low Fat, Men And Women, Mid 1980s, Obesity Rates, Old Woman, Overweight, Quality Of Life, Woman Body
At last some sense being talked in the health industry.
More and more we find that “mainstream” medicine is getting on some odd bandwagons, such as animal fats, alcohol and even sunshine!!
I dont know why they should do this considering that all three of those have been around since time began.
Clearly excess sugar (refined) is a clear culprit in the obesity stakes and also all of the so called “healthy” cereals have way too much salt in.
The answer to a long and healthy life (I hope) is natural foods, no additives, skip the sugars and keep away from as many medicines as is possible.
Hi steve – there are more and more people coming into agreement re the ‘mainstream’ health side of things.
It is very interesting that refined sugars (starch inc.), salt, animal fats have all come in for some real criticsm and some is justified. However, the problem always has some element of miscommunication – for example: sugar has come in for some very bad press but actually it should be sucrose that gets the bad press (even more complicated because the brain needs sucrose to function) but the real truth is that there are many biologically active sugars that are being considered essential by many.
One more example – cholesterol – seen as a health villain – but the problem is that artificially lowering the cholesterol levels actually may be causing neurological disease.
I’m right with you and thank you for your very correct comments. Real even raw food is the way to go – but we still live in a toxic world and there is nothing that we can do to take ourselves out of that situation – so we need to guard ourselves by the use of anti-oxidants that really work – rather than trust the marketing hype around so called wonder fruit juices