Covid-19: Overfat Syndemic
One of our favorite researchers, scholars, and reporters is — Phil Maffetone — because he always has an interesting, and integral, take on what’s happening in the field of health and fitness.
Phil recently shared part of a scholarly article with us that he authored about the Covid-19 pandemic and what he describes as the — “Overfat Syndemic” — that is overtaking our health and fitness:
Reactive care is described as screening for disease, post-disease treatment, and little to no lifestyle implementation; proactive care refers to reducing disease risk, pre-disease preventive intervention, and a strong emphasis on healthy lifestyle to support natural immunity.
The problem is not new. Modern medicine tends to wait for disease to strike then address it with expensive measures that don’t address the cause.
By considering the big picture view of Covid-19 as a syndemic, we see that susceptibility to disease would not occur, or would become less serious, if the vulnerabilities to infections and spreading of disease were reduced by proactive measures. In the case of Covid-19, it is primarily fueled by the overfat pandemic and its downstream conditions, including impaired immunity, malnutrition, inflammation, and co-morbidities such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic illness. Overfat is defined as excess body fat that impairs health, and includes those who are overweight, obese, and about 40 percent of the population who are normal weight but have excess belly fat.
The decades-long diet-induced overfat pandemic has been enabled — and even encouraged — by governments and public health agencies, not unlike Big Tobacco’s damaging reign. Junk food is the new tobacco.
The researchers say it’s time to plan for the next infectious pandemic by taking proactive measures and addressing the causes of reduced resistance to disease, rather than waiting for another disaster.
Sometimes it isn’t enough to just stand up and exercise where then are other perils to the heart and hearth. We have to also push ourselves beyond the simple means of trying, and then get into the important realm of actually getting something done when it comes to having a right health goal. The pandemic odds are rarely stacked below us.
This journey can be both punishing and lonesome, but as long as we stick together — and aim for the same goal of not just fitness but also becoming fit — we can move past the barriers set before us, and overachieve into our destined greatness.
