Long associated with hunger, India is now confronting an epidemic of obesity and lifestyle diseases
, an Indian doctor and researcher, was photographed with his friend and collaborator, John Yudkin, a British professor of medicine. Then in early middle age, both men appear trim and healthy. Indeed, the two had the same “body-mass index”, a widely used if imperfect measure of obesity: 22.3, around the middle of the ideal range. But further testing revealed a stark difference. Body fat made up just 9.1% of Dr Yudkin’s mass. The result for Dr Yajnik was more than twice as high, at 21.2%.
The first of these is genetics. As Dr Yajnik demonstrated, Indians are genetically predisposed to adiposity, which is a gentle way of saying that they have less lean body mass and more fat. Worse, this fat tends to gather around the middle, which puts pressure on vital organs. The third factor is the role of religion and caste, combined with the politicisation of food. Despite India’s reputation as a predominantly vegetarian country, 70% of women and 83% of men eat fish, chicken or meat at least occasionally, according to government figures. Yet animal protein is rarely prioritised in nutritional advice and attempts to introduce it are sometimes met with hostility, says a nutritionist who has sat on various government committees.
Adding to the specific Indian problems are more common ones. As India grows richer and urbanises, sales of packaged and processed foods are booming. Among the urban middle class, per-person purchases of calorie-dense foods such as sweet snacks, salty snacks and edible oils rose rapidly between 2013 and 2017, according to analysis of commercial data by Cherry Law at the University of Reading and colleagues.
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