Eating Away Stress
Ukraine has found itself on the list of European nations with the highest percentage of overweight people. According to data of the Institute for Nutritional Hygiene, 35-36% of Ukrainian men, 41% of women, and 15-16% of children and teenagers are overweight. Experts point to low living standards as the root cause behind this growing trend.
“Excessive weight can be viewed from different angles,” says Petro Karpenko, M.D., who chairs the dietetics department at the Institute of Environmental Hygiene and Toxicology, adding: “It may be hereditary obesity or the result of some sort of disease. But excess weight is frequently linked to an unbalanced diet.” Unbalanced diets in turn stem from socioeconomic problems. While everybody can normally afford bread, pasta, and potatoes, not everyone has the resources to buy more nutritious types of food. These starchy foods are high in calories and have almost no biological value. Statistically, over the past 15 years the average Ukrainian has increasingly consumed less meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, and dairy products, while his intake of potatoes and baked goods has increased 2 to 2.5 times. The resulting metabolic imbalance has put Ukrainians into the weight category of prosperous Europeans.
The modern fast-food culture is only making matters worse. The extensive informational campaign against fast-food habits has brought some changes, but vendors of hotdogs, burritos, pizzas, and sandwiches, including the infamous hamburgers, are still omnipresent. Cheap, fast, and ubiquitous, fast food has become the main source of nutrition for students.
A sedentary lifestyle and stress are also risk factors for obesity. “Stress increases the craving for food,” says psychologist Iryna Zhdanova. “When a person is overwhelmed by worries and problems, s/he might consume one sandwich after another without even noticing.”
Experts claim that excess weight can be a hereditary condition. Ukrainian women are traditionally associated with buxom figures, and traditional Ukrainian cuisine is heavy in calories. “If excess weight is hereditary and a person is diagnosed with first-degree obesity, it isn’t always cause for concern,” says Petro Karpenko. “After all, everybody has his own, individual weight.”
The universal advice for avoiding obesity is to eat little but frequently, move as much as possible, and monitor the ingredients of food products. After all, since we made it onto this unflattering list only recently, we have every chance of getting off it quickly. This is partly up to the government, since experts have established a direct connection between growing food prices and extra per capita kilograms.
