I was reading an article and then did a little more reading on Chinese "Fat Prisons" where people can sign up to be locked away for two to four weeks, spending four hours a day in exercise classes, being fed controlled diets, and not being able to leave - for about 1000 dollars. Damn - that is a cheap, all-inclusive holiday!! I am considering it.
It sounds awesome.
Okay, I am not seriously considering it in the sense that I will go, but given the opportunity, I would. Rather, I am considering it because perhaps it is not such bad idea to have these kinds of places available for those who want to do something about their weight, or other issues they might have.
In the US:
- 74% are considered overweight
- 40% are considered obese
- 10% are considered severely obese
Put all of the problems with using BMI calculations aside, because unless everyone in the US is walking around with bulging muscles, it is likely that the room for error still leaves a lot of fat people. I am not fat-shaming here, because I want to lose fat myself, as I struggle with eating too much "good food" with the irony being that it is not good for me at all.
However, I think that all the money spent on military or even health issues like Covid, would be better used tackling daily health issues, like obesity. Instead of sending troops into cities to round up illegal immigrants, there should be an army of nutritionists, personal trainers, and mental health experts working on the ground within local communities, improving health outcomes at all levels - physical, mental, and social. Mental health includes emotional health.
As I have mentioned before, I think it would be beneficial for society if neighbourhoods had "health centres" that work directly with preventative healthcare, rather than treating symptoms. Nutritionists and trainers could be assigned a neighbourhood and families to visit regularly, evaluate personally and work with to create tailormade packages and support positive change, free of charge. These professionals would change the approach (or change the professional) depending on the customer, where a young family would get a different support process than an elderly couple, or someone living alone.
In the US, only 3% of healthcare expenditure is spent on preventative healthcare. Finland spends over double that, and it is still not enough. The cost of acute healthcare is enormous and is only getting larger, as people get unhealthier on average. What this means is that the flow increases, taking up more resources, so that preventative measures are less likely to get funding and attention. It all goes to the acute problems of now, rather than dealing with upstream problems that would reduce the flow and decrease the pressure on acute treatment.
While Fat Prisons might be one small way to tackle the issues we have created today, what we should be aiming toward is not requiring prison of any sort in the future. That means reducing the flow of people who require "incarceration" - even if they are locking themselves up voluntarily.
Using the term "prison" is also somewhat problematic for many perhaps, because it assumes that the person has done something wrong. And technically, yes, they have done something wrong for their health, but it might be more of an "entrapment" situation, where they have been conditioned and primed by upbringing, culture and society to have the outcomes they have. This isn't to shift blame from the individual to create an excuse though, rather that individuals need to acknowledge the "trauma of their past" and do something about it in the present, so they can stop living a traumatised life.
Trauma is almost universal in prisons, with estimations based on studies that it could be as high as 97% of those incarcerated having experienced past trauma, with most experiencing what is called "Adverse Childhood Experiences" (ACEs) like abuse, neglect, or witnessing violence. Not only that, it is estimated that over 75% of substance abusers have experienced psychological trauma. .
If we look at factors leading to obesity from the same perspective as crime or substance use, rather than looking at it as a personal problem, it becomes a societal problem. Locking people up isn't going to help, if society keeps traumatising children to lead them into the conditions requiring incarceration. Treating fat people today is good, but what we should be doing as a society is slowing down the flow of fat people tomorrow.
Is this a keystone situation?
A keystone is the large stone at the top of the arch that puts pressure on all the other stones to keep the arch from collapsing inward. In terms of a keystone habit, it is one that when performed puts pressure on other habits to have a knock-on effect, improving (or degrading) other aspects. For instance, consistent exercise is a keystone habit that affects things like diet and work ethic, which also has effects on things like attitude and emotional wellbeing.
I suspect that if as a society we were to focus on something like obesity as a problem to tackle directly, in so doing we would also improve many other aspects of our collective lives, including mental health outcomes. This is because the process to improve physical health, tends to have positive effects on mental health (including emotional) and social health too. And no, it isn't creating a society of people who are hellbent on getting a sixpack, because that doesn't mean healthy either, which is why Ozempic and similar aren't going to improve people's mental wellbeing and if anything, might make many people worse off than when they had extra weight. It is another symptom approach, rather than dealing with causes.
To be healthy as a society, the approach needs to be holistic in nature, meaning that all contributing factors need to be considered and dealt with, rather than just treating the symptom. For instance in my case, I require a lot of willpower not to eat certain foods, and this becomes easier when I am exercising consistently, because it affects my feelings about what I am doing and eating. However, what I should be working on is understanding why I have the issue in the first place, and then finding ways to disconnect the circuitry so that I am no longer a victim of my own past wiring.
I suspect that for me, it has to do with trauma in my own childhood, where I was forced to look after myself from a young age in many ways, and make my own decisions. My life wasn't rosy, so "sweet food" become one of the few "feel good" highlights in my life. Something I could rely on to provide a temporary escape from the reality of my existence. However, while this was controlled in childhood through access and affordability, as I got older the access shackles came off, and even though not in the same life conditions, eating sweets became a habit for escape and reward.
I am imprisoned.
Our habits imprison us all. We are products of what we have experienced, but also products of what we continually do. Each action is a vote as to what kind of person we are going to be in the next moment, and most of our actions are default, thoughtless, conditioned behaviours that feel like they are part of us, even though they are learned. We are then forced to suffer ourselves, as we create a reality that we never intended and don't want to live.
I suspect that very few people aim to become fat. just like very few people intend to become a criminal, or a drug addict. It happens through a process of many steps that go all the way back to childhood, and conditions and situations that we never got to choose, but were subjected to. These then lead into the next set of conditions and the next, shaping our beliefs, our behaviours, and our feelings to drive our behaviours.
For me at least, it is strange to think that when I go to the fridge, I have to make a conscious decision to eat healthily, even though I intend and want to have the outcomes of healthy eating. Yet, I don't have to convince myself to eat junk food, I have to talk my way out of it. It is an ethical dilemma, isn't it? And I assume I am not alone in this, where at least statistically speaking, a high percentage of people reading are overweight themselves, and I assume that very few aimed to be overweight prior to becoming it. That means that no matter whether they accept themselves as overweight today, it happened through an unintentional process. And yes, while they might be happy now as overweight, that doesn't mean they couldn't have been happy if they had never got overweight in the first place.
I don't think there are many people who enjoy being in prison, or being an addict, or being obese. I don't think there are many people who like the feeling of not being able to control their own behaviours in areas they want to change. I don't think there are many people who are happy with having the symptoms of an unhealthy life, even if it wasn't their initial fault.
I think most people want to be healthier than they are.
So, if this is the case and people do indeed want to have better health outcomes, shouldn't this be where we direct a lot of our attention and resources as a society? Shouldn't we demand that the mechanisms that create our environment start making the changes necessary to improve our health outcomes? Wouldn't we want the tax money we spend to make our lives healthier, rather than corporations wealthier?
You'd think.
But we don't think or act.
So we remain in prisons of our own making.
Taraz
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