The International Institute For  Self-Help Holistic Therapies Ltd.

Mastering weight problems

and eliminating binge eating

Alert: there is an obesity epidemic!

Overweight and obesity are now well recognized as global diseases of epidemic proportion. Only one third of the population is not concerned in America:  recent  figures tell us that in 1980 about 45% of U.S. adults were overweight or obese, this number rising to 55% in 1990 to reach 65% today, half of those figures concerning obesity. In Europe one fifth to one third of the population is concerned and the figures are on an alarming ascending course.

The prevalence of obesity in adults is 10% to 25% in most countries of Western Europe and 20% to 25 % in some countries in the Americas.

This figure increases up to 40% for women in eastern European and Mediterranean countries, and black women in the USA. Even higher prevalences are observed among American Indians, Hispanic Americans, and Pacific Islanders, with probably the highest rates in the world among Melanesians, Micronesians, and Polynesians. Up to 70% of women and 65% of men on the island of Nauru in Micronesia are obese.

In China it is estimated that the problem has grown three fold since 1980 as an unpredicted consequence of the reforms initiated by Deng Xiao Ping.

There is a strong correlation between the Social Economic Status (SES) and the people affected by that epidemic. In developed societies there is an inverse relation to the SES. Higher levels societies are more health conscious and more educated on the danger of certain lifestyles. This is the contrary in developing countries such as China where status is important and eating westernized food is classy.

In a communication published by the International Journal of Epidemiology,  Dr WANG You Fa from the department of Human Nutrition University  of Illinois, Chicago, quoting the work of Sobal and Stunkard writes:" they concluded that these studies reveal a strong inverse relationship between social economic status "SES" and obesity among women in developed societies, but the relation is inconsistent for men and children... In contrast, in developing countries a strong relationship exists between SES and obesity among men, women and children. In China urban children and adolescents were at a higher risk...high-income children and adolescents were more likely to be obese... Compared to their rural counterparts, urban Chinese usually have higher family income, better access to food (especially meat and poultry), public services such as health care and transportation. They are also more likely to have sedentary lifestyles..."

A BBC report noted a marked rise in obesity in China to the point of  becoming a public health issue: “The increasing "Westernisation" of the country's diet, coupled with a generation of spoiled, only children, is producing a marked increase in clinically overweight citizens… 20% of Beijing's children being measured as obese. To blame, say experts, are the economic reforms introduced by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping 20 years ago… These have led to radical changes in the diet of the Chinese, once reliant on healthy fish, rice and vegetables… In Hong Kong, children are also taller and fatter than they used to be.”

Many studies stressed the role of transportation in the development of obesity and overweight in China. There has been a decrease in cycling and walking, and recently bicycles have been banned from Shanghai to make room for cars (while in Paris and London the policy is the reverse – the narrowing of car lanes to deliberately create traffic congestion and dissuade car owners from using their vehicles, and creation of protected lanes for bicycles).

At home, a decrease in household activities with more time on the couch looking TV and playing video games. Decrease of physical activity due to use of escalators in public places. Decrease in physical labour. Increase in prepared and junk foods.

Stress and toxicity of certain foods acting as triggers to binge eating are not often evoked in studies on overweight and obesity.

The high incidence of Type II diabetes mellitus (insulin dependent) as a co-morbidity to obesity and overweight should incite us to also look for those factors inasmuch as we know the dangerous effects of cortisol.

Sustained stress is also responsible: this is why weight problems also concern educated people of the highest levels. These people are exceptions to the SES provided explanations to weight problems.

Many well-known people and educated celebrities went public with their eating disorders, among them:

 Jane Fonda "For 25 years, I could never put a forkful in my mouth without feeling fear, without feeling scared." "This feels like one of those Alcoholic Anonymous meetings...but instead it's, 'I'm Jane Fonda and I've been bulimic and anorexic for 25 years of my life.'"

Carre OTIS, top fashion model “My diet was really starvation. I am not naturally that thin so I had to go through everything from using drugs to diet pills to laxatives to fasting. Those were my main ways of controlling my weight.”

And Elvis Presley, Elton John, Marlon Brando, Princess Diana, Kate Dillon, Janet Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Fiona Apple, Whitney-Houston…

Athletes and individuals highly involved in sport also pay a high tribute to this epidemic

According to the British Olympic association five out of seven champions under 20 suffer from eating disorders in such categories as gymnastics, ice-skating and tennis. The pressure of competition, altered self-image and misconceptions such as believing that less fat increases the transport of oxygen to the muscles are at cause. Dedicated athletes are more than often obsessed by the need of keeping a thin body, an obsession that can bring them to permanent stress, depression and… sudden death.

The problem is prevalent in women strongly involved in sports: a 1992 NCAA survey of USA college athletes reported eating disorders in 93% of women’s sports programs.

Ms P. Bee, health journalist and reporter, a former long distance runner, suffered for three years from a serious form of anorexia  that caused permanent damage to her bones affected now by severe osteoporosis. A task force has been set up to investigate eating disorders among people heavily involved in sport.

Even though practicing sport is socially highly valued it also brings the danger of making young girls excessively weight-conscious to such a degree that it becomes difficult to distinguish from plain eating disorders.

Some activities such as gymnastics, ice-skating, ballet or acrobatics are for obvious reasons incompatible with weight gain. A dangerous habit of measuring one’s weight can turn to obsession and bring despair leading to drug-taking (laxatives and diuretics) or vomiting.

Mood swings, fits of temper, depression and substance abuse are early signs of a deteriorating mental condition. It is as difficult for a young girl as it is for an adult to admit having eating disorders. Moreover, to address this problem, solutions such as excessive exercise or restricted eating patterns are misconceptions deemed acceptable by coaches and families. And compared to an adult the pressure to manifest good results by setting excessive goals is intense, leading to prolonged stress with a permanent high level of cortisol that becomes another cause of the trouble.

A high level of cortisol causes weight gain, diabetes, binge-eating, hypertension, osteoporosis and depression.

How can Voice Technology (VT) help you?

A VT treatment acts directly on the craving for food and the binge compulsion feeling. This treatment can be applied regularly and the results of this holistic and alternative therapy are dramatic!

VT can also identify what foods are toxic for a given individual.

Avoiding toxic foods will make the treatment last.

A return of the compulsion always means the presence of a toxin (a new session will help identify it).

VT will help decisively in changing the body image and any feeling of guilt or shame.

The diet associated with VT is not another “thinness program” based on counting calories, it is on the contrary a diet aimed at removing specifically the food that triggers compulsion or anxiety.

A laboratory research of urinary peptides can be of great help because it is not uncommon to find intolerance to the very foods recommended to athletes and top fashion models as diet to stay thin or build muscles.

Unfortunately some people, genetically, do not have the peptidases (enzymes) necessary to digest them and they can transform into very dangerous exorphins.

Those exorphins perturb the nerve influx transmission at the brain level and are directly responsible for such symptoms as anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, binge eating, night eating.

Keeping away from those foods make the benefit of a VT treatment permanent.