Effects of Bad Eating Habits on Health
Bad eating habits are responsible for the huge health problems that affect a large number of Australians today. Usually, a typical diet for an Australian is enriched with saturated fat, trans fat, salt and sugar. On the other hand, many of them disregard the importance of including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fiber in their diet.
The Australian Health Survey recently did a study on 12,000 people and discovered that Australians are consuming 30% less fruits and vegetables than fifteen years ago, with 25% of grown-ups not consuming any vegetable on a normal day and only 7% consuming the recommended five servings per day.
Australians consume around 3 kilograms of food and drinks every day. Surprisingly, over half of this food is high in saturated fat and sugar, which have dire implications on health. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) reports that poor eating habits, particularly too much intake of sugary foods, are the leading causes of disease, disability, and death in the country, and were responsible for about 90% of all deaths in 2011.
Sugar is unhealthy
Most of the sugar we take is concealed in foods we consume each day. Excessive consumption of sugar normally leads to detrimental health effects. It is important that we restrict the quantity of added sugar we take in our diet, particularly in sugary foodstuffs and drinks.
Even though the World Health Organization (WHO) is presently reevaluating its guidelines on sugar, it has always maintained since 2002 that our consumption of free sugars should not be more than 10% of our total daily energy intake. Free sugars are the ones added to foods or naturally present in honey, syrups, and fruit juices. Sugars present in fresh fruits, vegetables, and milk are normally considered good for health.
More so, the Australian National Health & Medical Research Council has given the country’s dietary guidelines with recommendations for people to limit their consumption of foods having added sugars, such as soft drinks, manufactured juices, sweetened cakes, and biscuits.
Sugar, sometimes called “sweet poison”, has been blamed for the unprecedented rise in global health problems. Consequently, several anti-sugar campaigners around the world have called for increased regulation on sweetened foods and drinks. For example, Professor Robert Lustig, an endocrinologist in the U.S., and Jamie Oliver, a renowned media personality in England, have campaigned for sugar to be regulated and taxed, just like alcohol or tobacco.
Sugar is expanding waistlines
Obesity rates in Australia are rising overwhelmingly. According to a report published by the Lancet, a leading medical journal, 63% of Australians are overweight. This is a major concern because obesity is a key risk factor for several illnesses, including type 2 diabetes, heart diseases, and some cancers.
So, we have all the reasons to blame sugar for making us fat.
A group of researchers from the University of Otago in New Zealand performed some studies to understand the effects of free sugars on body weight and found out that increasing sugar consumption was related to a corresponding increase in body weight among adults.
Interestingly, the researchers discovered that substituting free sugars with other carbohydrates does not lead to any gain in body weight.
Sugar is making many Australians to expand their waistlines since it is high in energy and they can take large amounts of it and fail to recognize the harmful effects of their actions, particularly when they are taking it in the form of sweetened drinks.
Sugar’s connection to chronic diseases
The harmful effects of sugar go beyond increasing the waistlines of people. The sweet poison has been blamed for the rising cases of chronic diseases among Australians. Some of these include heart diseases, cancer, and type 2 diabetes.
If we consume too much sugar, we will escalate the secretion of insulin and spark our bodies to utilize the sugar either for generating energy or for storage in the form of fat. At the same time, insulin prevents the generation of the hormone leptin, which is responsible for sending messages to the brain when the stomach is full of food. This implies that if we consume excess sugar, we can continue eating without even realizing that we’ve had enough.
This is why we should limit our sugar intake.
According to a study done by the American Society of Nutrition in 2014, the researchers discovered that consumption of sugar had harmful effects on blood pressure and cholesterol. Surprisingly, the findings of their study were independent of any weight gain.
Sugar and type 2 diabetes
Type 2 diabetes is a condition in which the body becomes resistant to insulin or when the pancreas fails to generate sufficient insulin for regulating the use of sugar. Type 2 diabetes represents about 85% of all cases of diabetes in Australia.
A number of experts have cited that excessive sugar intake is one of the key risk factors for type 2 diabetes. In a study of more than 90,000 women by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, it was found that sugar enhances the risk of diabetes.
It is estimated that about 280 Australians develop diabetes each day (this equals to one individual every 5 minutes!). Currently, it is estimated that 1.7 million Australians have diabetes. And, the cost of managing this condition is approximated to be $14.6 billion.
In addition to the heavy expenses at managing the condition, type 2 diabetes is also responsible for serious long-term health problems such as vision loss and blindness, kidney failure, lower limb amputation, and cardiovascular diseases.
Since sugar affects the liver and pancreas in a manner that other kinds of food cannot, it is critical that we limit its intake.
Other effects of sugar
Sugar plays a detrimental role in causing tooth decay. The Australian Dental Association (ADA) blames the excessive intake of sugary foodstuffs and drinks as the prime cause of tooth decay in the country.
Teeth decay take place when bacteria present in the mouth change sugar into acids that dissolve the outer surface of the teeth ultimately making tiny openings to develop.
The ADA estimates that there are more than 19 million decayed teeth in the country and projects 11 million more cases on an annual basis.
Sugar is also one of the key contributors to cancer. In 2012, about 43,000 Australians died from the disease. Cancer is usually characterized by unregulated growth and reproduction of body cells. And, insulin is one of the important hormones responsible for controlling this kind of growth. Therefore, having continually raised insulin levels (an outcome of excess sugar intake) can lead to some types of cancer.
The bottom line
To this end, it’s evident that bad eating habits, particularly excess sugar consumption, is detrimental to health. Therefore, it’s important that we adopt the WHO recommendations and limit the quantity of sugar we consume per day.
It may not be possible to restrict our intake of sugar completely. However, we should strive to get most of our sugar from natural sources. Natural sources such as honey or cane sugar will still lead to excessive sugar consumption. The best natural sources of sugar are fruits and vegetables.
In conclusion, we need to lower our intake of sugar to 10% or less of our total energy so that we can live healthy and happy lives.
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