Strengthen the Food Intake Structure In Human Beings

Question: Describe about the Strengthen the Food Intake Structure In Human Beings. Answer: Introduction A chronic disorder like obesity effects individuals as well as populations. Virtually speaking, all obese people develop chronic diseases post 40 years of age in urban areas like Southwark. Medical intervention is required by the age of 60. Obesity is the primary concern in several diseases including cancer, cardiac malfunction, diabetes, etc. There can be several contributing factors to the rise of obesity in urban areas. The factors are psychological, nutritional, habitual, physiological, behavioral, genetic, neurological, social and occasionally even pathological or drug induced. According to Sharma 2009, Telling someone with obesity to simply eat less is about as effective as telling someone with depression to simply cheer up but overeating and eating disorders are important contributing factors effecting obesity rates in urban areas. The common idea about the situation is that in UK obesity is primarily driven by over consumption of nutrient-poor food. Reduction of physical acti vity is another one of the issues contributing to the rise of obesity in urban UK communities. Considering the district of Southwark, we can conclude that one of the daunting health issues faced by the inhabitants of the area is Obesity. Public health has great significance and requires immediate attention in order to address and minimize the issue. The newly adopted health initiatives not only focus on individuals suffering from disease but also cover the wellbeing of the whole population. In Southwark Obesity has emerged as a serious concern because it starts at very early age in children. The assignment discusses the rationale of choosing obesity as a significant health issue in Southwark. The determinants considered and the urban context of the issue is addressed in the assignment. Obesity is a condition in which accumulation of body fat has negative impact on a persons health. Obesity leads to many other diseases and is considered an aftereffect of unhealthy life style of different people all over the world. This report aims to discuss and dissect the root causes of Obesi ty among inhabitants of Southwark, its effects and strategies to address the issue are also discussed in brief detail. c) Rationale, why Obesity is an urban health issue for Southwark The latest figures reveal that the obesity rate in children living in deprived areas of UK is the highest. The data quoted by Health and Social Care Information Center (HSCIC) states that for 6-year-old children of deprived areas obesity rates were recorded to be 24.7%. This was excessively high when compared to the child obesity rate of 13.1% prevailing in rest of the country. The concern here is that there has been increase in percentage of obese people with the passing of every year. The phenomenon of urbanization has been on rise since the last decade; however, deprived areas have faced recurring episodes of health debacles. The population of Southwark is diverse; the community is segregated based on ethnicity, culture as well as language. The people of the community are divided by social stature and financial status. According to a recent survey, it has been indicated that the population of Southwark is approximately 3 million, out of which 63% of the population is white, 8% bla ck Caribbean and 16% black African (Southwark 2000). Obesity is considered as a serious health issue in Southwark as one fourth of the communitys youth population is obese at an early age of 6. According to WHO, obesity statistics have nearly doubled since 1980.Obesity has become a global phenomenon and therefore, therefore the term global obesity is more appropriate. The rise in obesity implicates two major reasons: (1) increment in the intake of energy-rich foods that have extremely high fat content, (2) reduction in physical activity by the people. This result in imbalance between energy consumed and energy expended (Council 2005). The statistics are shown in the following table. This is the kind of addiction that involves food instead of drugs. Food addiction is more common than people think it to be. In most of the cases of food addiction, people keep on eating even if they have no place left in their stomachs. This disorder can also be categorized as abuse of food items; it can cause serious hazards (Councils and Newton 2012). The most common outcomes of this disorder are psychological in nature and can have severe consequences. In this report, we would try to evaluate and understand overeating with the help of existing framework, for substance abuse disorder. Junk food has become the way of life and status symbol for the urban population. People go to high-end restaurants at any given instance just to display their social standing and financial status. The children are awarded with fast food meals for every good deed; every trip is punctuated by fast food breaks. This is primarily an urban problem because such restaurant chains and fast food joints are part of the urban culture. There is practically no mention of vegetables or fruits. Moreover, people residing in urban areas have no time to cook their own food that is why they depend on junk food. These reasons can sufficiently back up the idea that obesity is an urban issue. Is obesity absent in the rural areas? No. However, more people that are obese walk the roads of cities in comparison to villages or the countryside. According to the sick city hypothesis although cities have had the opportunity to be the centre of action and prosperity at all times, they also have had to withstand the worst of plagues, poverty and continuous bouts of health issues. For instance, Southwark is a well to do district of central London but incidentally three out of five residents of the area are experiencing the rage of obesity. Now, obesity is not just a problem, it is the root cause of a number of diseases. It has become a major problem of the area. Then there is the concept of urban health penalty which describes how the urban population is increasing with each passing day and becoming more convoluted. The number of poor people s increasing and the health benefits offered to them are decreasing by the minute. They do not get the most basic of necessities in most of the cases, no healthcare, no food, and no choice. They have to eat what they get. d) Urban Context and determinants to explain Obesity Health is one of the precious blessings of God and it is a fact that everybody wants to live a healthy life. There may be different reasons behind this desire but still their purpose is same: healthy life equals to a happy life. Health is the most amazing blessing that enables a person to enjoy his life without difficulties marring his experience. However, when a persons health is compromised, he is unable to sustain his life and live independently. The growing health issues around the world are making human life pathetic. Almost all the countries have ineffective health policies and incapable health sectors, which never address the health issues properly (Gibbs, Mann and Mathers 2015). The basic needs of millions and billions of people remain unfulfilled. From sanitation issues and malnutrition to unavailability of safe drinking water, there are numerous ills prevailing which drifts humankind towards acute diseases. Thus, human life is drifting towards a major catastrophe. The deter iorating state of affairs calls for a concrete health campaign, which could address the health issues on an urgent basis. This campaign should be introduced and implemented around the world unilaterally. More importantly, continued attention should be paid to the epidemic diseases like obesity so that, it can be wiped out from the developed and underdeveloped areas of the world for example Southwark of London. The key determinants to study the urban issue of obesity are social stature, carrying of different diseases, smoking, malnutrition, number of children and urbanization of the society. The dismal performance on most of these fronts by the inhabitants of area speaks about the impact of this urban health issue. There are many determinants of obesity in the district of Southwark. The list of determinants includes: Diet: An individuals food habit plays a very important role. The family they live in influences their food habit. Therefore, it can be concluded that the urban family structure influences the food habits. Adult obesity can be tracked back to and related to parental obesity. Low cost energy dense food items can attract children as well as adults of urban localities like Southwark where the availability of such items is also high. Physical activity: Nobody is interested in spending time outdoors in this day and time. Adults are too busy, teenagers are too lazy and children are more interested in fries and video games. The urban societal structure has enabled this behavior amongst the urban population. Easy availability of commodities, food items and leisure items has helped this attitude. Obesity is the product of such behavior in the urban population. Moreover, in case of children there is an increased pressure on academic stature and decreased stress on physical activity. Socio-economic status: An interesting dichotomy can be viewed in the relationship between socio-economic status and weight gain. The urban poor of the developed countries are vulnerable because of poor diet availability as well as lack of physical activity. Eat what is cheap and eat what you get is the motto amongst the urban poor. They do not have the liberty or the monetary support to choose food items based on nutritional value. They are bound to choose from a list of available items. Culture and tradition: The set belief system in the urban population has been passed down through generations. The societal structure influences the belief system. This condition is more prevalent in developing countries but flecks of the belief system can also be found in developed countries like UK. There is a common myth in the reserved urban societies that a fat child is a healthy and happy child and a fat adult is a rich adult. In Southwark, the community is essentially rich and believes in showing off their stand in the society that is why overeating and eating at posh restaurants is encouraged. Animal Model of Over Eating and Diagnosis of Food Addiction This study considers the intake of sugar in an eating model. The animal used for testing is a rat. The experimenter would give the rat some food containing glucose after keeping it hungry for 10-12 hours. After a few days, more sugar intake patterns are observed and recorded. The result depicts a strange pattern of increased food intake during the first hour of provision. The observation revealed that the rats developed anxiety at a continuous level and affinity for sugar. On another group of rats, the same procedure was followed except that they were administered food after 30-minute intervals. They also showed affinity for sugar in form of sucrose (Bunyan, Murrell and Shah 1976). This overeating model is now discussed in terms of addiction. This model contains sufficient data to diagnose addiction. The question that needs to be first addressed is consideration of amount of the substance or food that is being used. The sucrose intake reveals the addiction of the animal. Then, the question arises that how much the subject showed dependence on the addictive food material? The weakness of this model is that it does not demonstrate non-discontinuity of the behavior with some application of unpleasant stimulus (Holland 1972). The unpleasant stimuli can be foot shock, nose poke etc. It should demonstrate the changes in the usage pattern under negative influence. This particular thing cannot be seen in this model. Further application of the procedure might also have revealed that even if the rats are given some punishment form of electric shocks or nose pokes, they will remain persistent in obtaining the sucrose. We can conclude that for any model of overeating, we need to observe the variance in disposition to its growth process. Binge eating in human society is a common occurrence similar with all the animal models of over eating because there is pattern of compulsive ingestion that is being followed here. The food that is being used in case of human studies and surveys should be more sugary in nature so that it can come under the category of 'Highly palatable food' for humans (Kolotourou et al. 2013). The normal food that is used for rodents will not show the desired results because the food used will not be tempting rather than it would be normal for the rodents to swallow this food. e) Public health consequences of Obesity on Southwark Obesity being such a deadly disease has lot of negative health impacts on the human body. The impacts range from physical to psychological and affect social scenarios as well. On the physical end, obese people in Southwark have been recorded to develop a lot of serious diseases like high blood pressure, heart issues, stroke, infertility, liver issues and lot of problems for pregnant women. These diseases are deadly and can have serious impact on the human body. The researchers have come up with an alarming news that life expectancy of obese people is reduced by 9 years. If we see the condition of the Southwark community, it is revealed that one of these serious diseases has affected most of them and the root cause of their disease is obesity. On the psychological front, the situation is not very pleasing either as obesity affects the life in real sense. The obese people develop lot of psychological disorders as well which affects their quality of life badly. Some of the most common issues being faced by obese people in Southwark include anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, dissatisfaction and poor quality of life. They always find themselves in a sorry state and seem fed up with life. Similarly, on the social front the situation is quite devastating as well because obese people face lot of discrimination at work, schools, healthcare facilities and even foreign locations. They find it difficult to relate with others and thus avoid public exposure and interaction. Furthermore, they find it difficult to make friends and socialize. Therefore, the impacts of obesity are devastating and life threatening. Neuro-imaging has revealed that food reward can affect the eating behaviors of the species largely. The experiments have shown that although here are individual based differences in response to food stimulus and intake, the same has been observed in animal models as well. The studies relating the two show that some people are able to maintain a healthy posture despite the high intake of fatty foods whereas many other people face obesity and episodic weight gains. This, in turn, shows that some people display less reward for the food that is being used by them and compensate (Gibbs, Mann and Mathers 2015). Here we need to discuss neural adaptation that surfaces due to continued overeating and they can induce perpetual overeating in specie. Intake of toothsome foods affects through endogenous opioids in numerous ways. The agonists of mu-opioid in NAc increase craving for food rich in fat or sugar. On the contrary, opioid antagonists play a role in decreased intake of sugar and palatable meals. Therefore, many people say that they feel compelled to eat sweet items, in the same way an alcoholic feels the craving to drink. These results are being shown through investigation of this sugar model. Food withdrawal also causes imbalance between DA/acetylcholine (ACh) in NAc, in which ACh comes to a dominating position and DA moves towards suppression. This part illustrates the neurochemical changes that occur during the workings of the sugar model selected by us. There is similarity in neural changes that occur during drugs self-administration and overeating or food addiction models. We would try to find out the brain changes, which match the effects of drug abuse, and other over eating models. Food is not considered as a substance of abuse but bingeing and over eating of highly palatable foods can change the viewpoint. This part is actually troublesome because that could lead to serious health issues in the end. Obesity is considered a disease that can be easily controlled and the most essential prerequisite required in that regard is willful attitude and determination to fight the disease. Contrary to this, there is a mindset, which believes the effects of obesity are somewhat similar to drug effects and cannot be brought under control easily by mere self control (Redfern et al. 2000). The medical and social facets are looking into different dimensions of the health issue and making recommendations that could address this epidemic. f) Strategies and interventions to address the urban health issue of obesity Obesity is a serious concern for urban population of Southwark and therefore effective strategies are required to address the issue. It needs to start at individual level and regional as well as State authorities need to chip in by playing their parts. At individual level, parents should take charge of their children. It has been found that breast-fed children are less prone to this deadly disease (Popkin et al. 2012). Therefore, mothers need to adopt this practice and make effective diet plans for their children at an early age. They should avoid giving high-energy foods to their children without arranging for some physical activity for them. Parents should make children eat fresh fruits and vegetables and reduce the intake of sugar. They should not be allowed to sit in front of TV or computer screens for long hours. Similarly adults need to take particular care of their diets and exercise plans. They also need to avoid high-energy stuff and correct their food intake. It is evident that there is no single cause behind the gradual increase in average obesity. Increase in physical inactivity, provisioning of cheap and palatable food has added weight in the balance to increase the obesity figures. As there was no refined and palatable food in old times so, obesity was not encouraged by food intake back then. In our modern society, we are constantly being influenced by different foods through the internet, television, radio, newspapers and many other sources of media. These act as catalysts infusing the craving for food and forcing us to come out of our dormitories and move towards the lavish dines. The other fact is that food is no longer rare in most of the developed societies; it is readily available, diverse, flavorful, cheap, and abundant (McDermott and Potton 2008). Therefore, new research has been able to show that the behavior of over eating is not an issue of will only rather than that it corresponds to neural changes that match with the drug use. It would be surprising to note that the state of an alcoholic person and an obese person is actually the same when they have no control over their drinking or binge eating. This grave condition definitely calls for urgent recommendation. In this regard, an effective and consistent healthcare campaign throughout Southwark is pertinent. The campaign should recruit some of the most renowned doctors working across the country to eliminate such disorders. Moreover, through this campaign the UNO should also come forward to work for this humane cause (McConnell 2011). The first recommendation for the implementation of this healthcare campaign is mass awareness. Until and unless, masses are made aware of the consequences of this deadly disease, it is impossible to prevent further spread of the disease. Through this health campaign, learned men should visit urban areas in order to educate masses about the health issues. In addition, there must be a strict enforcement of law and order. The health organizations should keep a check and balance over the food quality being produced in the area. Those who are involved in malpractices such as producing low quality food should be severely punished. The authorities should play their incumbent role by promoting public welfare (Economos et al. 2014). No doubt, an effective health campaign will mitigate the present challenge to a greater extent. Yet it may have to face a number of challenges in the form of coordination, control and collaboration amongst the authorities within the region. Obesity is not a concern for UK alone as the entire world is facing this issue although the level or extent varies as the lifestyles differ from one country to another, but the basic factors are somewhat constant all around (Tchernof and Desprs 2013). It is all about maintaining the right kind of balance in your life and if there is some kind of deviation from normal pattern the body responds in the form of a disruption like obesity, which creates a negative impression for the effected. The problem with this deadly disease is that it starts very early during childhood and the effected child have to bear with the consequences all his or her life. The children make it worse through their bad food habits, which mainly involve continued intake of junk food. Children should have a guided and supervised food intake routine. Nutritious food should be the norm. The problem with a disease like this is that it develops lot of other diseases as well. In short, it disturbs the whole body by affe cting different processes. We can conclude that for any model of overeating, we need to observe the variance in disposition to its growth process (Silverstone 1981). Binge eating in human society is a global feature because a pattern of compulsive ingestion is being followed here. The food considered is high in sugar content, which entitles it to come under the category of 'highly palatable food' for human beings. The most common types of eating disorders like anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder cause severe changes in eating behaviors of human and as a result cause serious health problems (Marsh 1977). The problems most commonly associated with anorexia nervosa include thinning of bones, drying yellowish skin, constipation, brain damage, multi organ failure and infertility. On the other hand, bulimia nervosa causes imbalance of electrolytes, dehydration, intestinal disorder, sore throat and tooth decay. Binge eating leads to fluctuating blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases. It ha s been claimed by researchers that most people with eating disorders have to confront psychological issues as well (Shearn). Some of the most commonly found psychological disorders among patients with eating disorder include anxiety, panic, obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. Recommendations and Conclusions Wheel structure and a lineage of physical activity can help strengthen the food intake structure in human beings (Karnik and Kanekar 2015). Physical activity is the main tool to handle and curb all the epidemics that occur due to diet-based disparity, for instance obesity. We can also control obesity by limiting food intake or by minimizing the palatability of the food content that is ingested. The intake of junk food or the food that are rich in fat and sugar contents should be manipulated to cure diet-based obesity (Madden et al. 2005). It is evident that there is no single cause behind the gradual increase in average obesity. Increase in physical inactivity, provisioning of cheap and palatable food has added weight in the balance to increase the obesity figures. Refined or highly palatable food was not a part of the early societal structure and therefore food was not the one factor responsible for obesity back then. It did not cause obesity at that time. Groups that are engaged to develop different activities anomalous to the daily routines of individuals in a community can help incorporate healthy living habits in communities. There should be a realistic schedule and regular weight maintenance goals. These steps can rescue the obese population from morbidities like type 2 atherosclerosis, diabetes, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia (Casazza et al. 2013). There should be a program for weight loss supervised by physicians, trainers, therapists, dieticians and instructors. Over consumption of food can cause different changes in the neural system that makes a species dependent on food intake. 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