Stress Weight Gain
Posted: November 21st, 2009 | Author: Joe | Filed under: Positive Thinking, health | 1 Comment »
Who doesn't want to lose weight? Many people go to gyms daily and take an assortment of diets towards that goal and fail to reach it. We all know someone who stopped a diet or gym visits for one reason (excuse) or another. Yet there is a factor at play in weight gain much stronger than any fast food or lack of using workout machines. That factor is psychological. The mind, the perception of one's relationship to their environment causes one to gain weight. Let me explain.
The number of Americans that overweight and obese is increasing. In fact, more than one-third of women between the ages of 20 and 74 are not overweight but obese. Interestingly, the majority of these women are African or Mexican American.
Diet and food are quickly to blame for the weight problem. In truth, this is a factor. Not only are peoples food choices unwise but poor neighborhoods generally have higher store food prices with less fruits and vegetables than other neighborhoods. Thus eating cheap fast food becomes a bargain relative to calorie/cost ratio. This same reason applies to other food choices such as pastas, cheap fatty meats, and so forth. A strong argument for the minority weight problem is the lack of healthy neighborhood food choices. Adding fuel to this position is the lack of parks, walking and biking paths.
Interestingly, eating poor quality foods leading to weight gain is not the whole picture. An interesting study emerged from Stanford University. Two rat groups both ate the same type and amount of food. The group of rats that were subjected to stress gained weight.
More studies emerged, one from London I believe that showed lower ranking employees tended to be overweight while high ranking employees, managers, and executives are not .
This was confirmed by a study of wild baboons in Africa. Baboons with lower social ranking in the troop had higher levels of stress hormones in their blood. These stress hormones have previously been linked to weight gain around the midsection. Some of the low ranking baboons were indeed fat. The alpha baboons in the troop had no stress hormones in their blood and no extra weight. Wild baboons in regards to social ranking and fat deposits matched the London employee study. The research on stress weight gain has cross-species proof.
Esteem
This brings us back to the African Americans and Mexican Americans who constitute the majority of obese Americans. Minorities tend to be located in low income neighborhoods. Existing low on the economic scale puts everyone who has money and power above. Without money one may feel trapped by bills and unable to move or lacking a voice and power and feel insignificant to society. One may have feel they have no other option than to be employed in a dead end job to make ends meet, pay bills and put food on the table for their children. This raises stress. This will cause weight gain. As proved with baboons and low status employees, feeling a lack of power harms the body by releasing stress hormones that add weight to the midsection. Prolonged stress leads to depression.
Weight gain not only occurs with certain food intake and a lack of exercise but also from stress caused from low social status. If you can entertain humor here, making yourself feel worthless will certainly cause a cascade of behavioral and hormonal changes that will cause you to pack on the pounds. Surely you will not employ this as a weight gaining method but rather as a learning tool to better understand how your relationship to your social environment has on your well-being. Depression, anxiety, and other stress related disorders are symptoms of a misaligned inner and outer relationship to reality. Weight gain is a physical manifestation of this.
This same relationship you have with your social environment dictates your overall view of reality. Those that are under stress will not think clearly, will have mental fog and will have a weak, continuous deteriorating relationship with the external world. When this happens opportunities for growth presented by the Universe is missed or not created due to the weak relationship, whichever position you feel is metaphysically correct.
When suck in the mud only one thing get's you out. To rise above your limited physical environment requires a change in your thinking first. Engage in an abundance mindset. Let go to the old mindset of scarce resources. When you change your thinking a shift of inner power occurs. This power shift is key to rise from the bottom to the top and all it requires is a perceptional change of reality. As long as you continue to put yourself in powerless situations your health will suffer.
Let's get back to the low-tiered employees and the baboons. Remember the studies showed the alphas in both groups as the fit and healthy members. Be active. Eat healthy. But first think like a winner for all things begin with thought.
I end with the motto: change your mind, change your world.
Education for Liberation! Venceremos Unidos!
Peter S. López, Jr. aka~Peta
Email: peter.lopez51@yahoo.com
http://twitter.com/Peta51
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