Week 7 Frying In My Own Fat Weightloss Challenge–-Tackling Global Obesity One Pound at a Time

(This article was first published as Week 7: Tackling Global Obesity One Pound at a Time on Technorati.)

A few weeks ago, I read with interest an article about some sort of U.N. special summit that was supposed to tackle chronic diseases. 

In light of my "Frying In My Own Fat" Weight Loss Challenge, I was particularly interested in  British Chef Jamie Oliver's plea to world leaders about tackling obesity globally.

In a letter to the UN, Oliver wrote, “One in ten people in the world are obese. It’s affecting our kids – 42 million are overweight before they even reach school age, and most of those beautiful children will be suffering from the early stages of heart disease and diabetes by the time they reach adulthood… People still don’t realize that the problem is not just limited to rich  countries, that worldwide being obese or overweight now causes more deaths than under-nutrition. It’s convenient for everyone to think that it’s just America which has the biggest problem.” 

Of course, Oliver has been on this skinny-minny bandwagon for quite some time now. A few years back, he tried to introduced healthy lunches in some British schools. That worked about as well as me substituting tea for my morning coffee.

According to the news report, "children fought back by boycotting the cafeterias. Some parents even shoved hamburgers, pizza and french fries to hungry children through school yard fences."

Undeterred, Oliver continued championing healthier food in schools and was vindicated in later news reports when test scores rose and people attributed the increase in brain power to the decrease in junk food. 

Still, I can certainly understand that sort of frustration exhibited along that school yard fence. I sort of felt that way the other day when I peered at my teensy-weensy, t-tiny frozen lunch. (Remember, this past week I grappled with that entire portion control thing.)

Oh, what I would have given for someone to shove a pizza my way, or a hamburger, or a few french fries.  

But because I didn't have anyone doing that, I managed to shed 1.6 pounds bringing my grand total weight loss so far to 7 pounds since I began this  weight loss shebang six weeks ago. 

I think maybe even Jamie Oliver might be proud.