So, toward the end of raising awareness, let’s have a look at the term “calorie” – one that I heard so often in those interviews:
A calorie is one of the most important terms to be understood in the fight against obesity and ill-health. Technically, the term calorie is a measure of the amount of energy required to raise 1g of water through 1 degree centigrade. One calorie is a tiny amount of energy - so the "calories" referred to on food packaging and in diet plans are in fact "kilocalories" (also referred to as Calories – with the capital C). With metric measurements, "kilojoules" (kJ) are always used. Calories are usually reported as a number representing the amount of available energy to be found in a specified weight (usually 100g) of any specified food stuff. Calories are sometimes reported in kilojoules (as in Australia, for example), which is the newer, metric measure. However, most of the world still thinks in the old imperial measures. Both terms are equally accurate, but kilojoule (kj) counts appear much higher than calorie counts because there are 4.2 calories in a kilojoule.
You can work out how many calories there are in the food you are about to eat if you know the calorie density of the food and the weight of the food. But it would be unwieldy to carry a pair of weighing scales around with you and doggedly weigh all the components of your meals and this is where the problem lies. It is so easy to read the (sometimes absent) nutritional information on a packet of biscuits and see that there might be, for example, 100 calories in “a portion”, but how many biscuits make up one portion? One? Three? Half a packet? Likewise, you can read in that same nutritional information that there might be 500 calories (or scarily, 2100 kj) in 100g of those biscuits (which is pretty average – you can see why they should be avoided, can’t you?). However, how many biscuits are there in 100g? One? Two? Three? Half a packet? Unless you set out to acquaint yourself with this information specifically, you will never find out. It’s the sort of information that will pass you by, forever available in the flotsam and jetsam of our lives, but rarely or never accessed by the man on the street.
There is no easy way of working out exactly how many calories any one person might require for their daily health. However, governments usually issue guidelines and the current guidelines appear to remain that the average Nepali adult needs to eat 2,400 calories per day. But with the increasing numbers of us working for our living by tapping on a computer keyboard and staring at a computer screen the number of calories required drops.
And once you know how many calories are in the various portions of food that you eat, do you know how many calories you actually need to eat in order to fulfil your nutrition requirements whilst avoiding the ill-health which accompanies both malnutrition and overweight?
The number of calories you need to eat is much harder to calculate than the number of calories you have consumed. Everybody uses calories. They are the fuel in our system, like the petrol in your car, which enables our engines to tick over. Just like a car, the fuel is burned and used up in motion and function, any fuel not burned is stored in the petrol tank (ok, so we haven’t got a petrol tank, but we store it as glycogen in our muscles and as fat around our bodies) until it is required for use. The major difference is that a car cannot store excessive amounts of fuel. Once the petrol tank is full your car cannot gorge itself on any more fuel. It does not celebrate with huge petrol feasts! Would that we more resembled our cars in this way!
Unfortunately, we enjoy our food. There is nothing like sitting down to a home cooked meal, is there? And who amongst us does not enjoy a really nice restaurant meal, carefully cooked using only the finest ingredients? Food enhances social interaction. We eat to celebrate, we eat to commiserate. We eat when we are together and we eat to console ourselves when we are alone. We eat for duty and nutrition and we eat for pleasure. Food is always there, especially nowadays. Ever present, ever available and ever pleasurable. And far too often the food we are about to eat comes with absolutely no report of calories or nutritional content.
Your calorie requirement will be influenced by several factors, including your sex, your lifestyle (how much physical exertion you engage in) and your weight. The heavier you are the more energy you will need to consume in order to maintain that weight. Likewise, the smaller you are the more sedentary your lifestyle is, the fewer calories you will require. If you eat more calories than you need you will gain weight and your risk of Nutrition Related Non-Communicable Disease (NRNCD) will rise.
Because there is so much variation amongst individuals, there is no easy way of working out exactly how many calories any one person might require for their daily health. However, governments usually issue guidelines and the current guidelines appear to remain that the average Nepali adult needs to eat 2,400 calories per day, but with modern labor saving devices like cars and buses reducing the need for physical exertion and with many of us able to pay for help around the home to tackle the physically demanding tasks required of us, how many calories will we burn in supervising those around us. Of course, pregnant ladies and growing children need more calories than they might otherwise, but Nepali people tend not to be of large stature. They tend to have fine bone structure and be slightly built.
They are a people acknowledged for their beauty and intelligence but not for their great height! Such a large number of calories may be required by a man undertaking physical labor to support his family but with the increasing numbers of us working for our living by tapping on a computer keyboard and staring at a computer screen the number of calories required drops. A man or woman digging the road will burn calories like there is no tomorrow, but a man who sits at a desk and deals with paperwork and computers will just not burn the same number of calories and if he or she continues to eat at that level the excess will be stored as fat. Ugly, wobbly, unhealthy fat which will sit in rolls around your thighs and waist and cause untold difficulties in days to come whilst making it difficult for you to carry out the tasks of everyday living and almost impossible to buy nice clothes and look presentable.
The more active you are and the heavier you are the more calories you will need to eat in order to maintain your weight. The smaller, slighter and sedentary you are, the more you rely on transportation and mechanisation, the fewer calories you will be able to consume without gaining weight. If you wish to keep your looks, to improve your health and ensure a long and physically comfortable retirement, you need to keep an eye on what you eat and how you spend your time. The best calorie burning exercises are the ones that involve the use of the largest muscles in our bodies, those found in our backsides and thighs. In order to burn calories effectively we all need to engage in activities which result in our using those muscles for extended periods of time several times a week – so light housework doesn’t really cut the mustard. Children need to engage in at least an hour of active play every day – running, jumping and swimming – that sort of thing. And here’s a word to the ladies: A tiring task is not necessarily a physically demanding one in exercise terms. Ironing is one of the most thankless tasks; back-breakingly tedious I find it to be and yet it is not a good calorie burner. Sorry.
Be mindful of the types of food you eat and the quantities. Food is a pleasure and it is not wrong to enjoy it. One of our constant drives is that to feed ourselves, and we must eat to live. But these days, it seems, many of us live to eat and that is a path which can only lead to NRNCD. Have an occasional treat, go ahead and eat that bag of Lays, but just one bag – and not everyday. Have an occasional bottle of cola, but drink other things too. This is the ultimate test of self-reliance. How many of us eat mindlessly and then profess to have no idea why we are not as slim as we once were? Be calorie conscious, both intake and output, and the problem will solve itself. Be active as you can, burn as many calories as you can and you can be sure that occasional calorific treat won’t pose too many risks for you but overindulge too often and you could be severely limiting your lifespan and life quality.
Writer is a graduate psychologist with a Post Graduate Certification in Education
rbaryal@talktalk.net
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