Author: IANS
Publication: Navhind Times
Dated: March 24, 2008
Move over crash diets, tummy tucker belts
and fat-loss pills. The latest craze in the battle against the bulge is Yoga.
Those who are practicing Yoga are aware that
they are not only getting rid of obesity but preventing major diseases
like diabetes and coronary heart disease. Yet others are practicing this ancient
discipline to lose fat and to gain a figure that would cause envy' to others.
"Last year, about 4,300 people took training and therapy at the institute.
Fifty per cent of them were there due to obesity," informed Ishwar Basavaraddi,
the director of the Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga, an autonomous
body under the department of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani,
Siddha and Homoeopathy). AYUSH comes under the Ministry of Health and
Family Welfare.
Basavaraddi said people are increasingly
feeling that Yoga is the best preventive method to deal with flab. According
to the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately 1.6 billion adults (above
15) were overweight globally in 2005 and at least 400 million were obese.
It predicts that by 2015, approximately 2.3 billion adults will be overweight
and more than 700 million will be obese. WHO recently said that the economic
consequences of obesity are as bad as those due to malnutrition.
Listing heredity, faulty lifestyle,
stress and hormonal imbalances as the main reasons for obesity,
Basavaraddi said Yoga could easily tackle any lifestyle disease. "One
just needs to do a few asanas like forward and backward bending, lateral
bending, twisting and topsy-turvy. If people do these asanas for just
15 every day, they will feel the difference themselves," he said.
If obesity is due to psychological factors, then meditation is the
best way, he added.
"Yoga means freedom from all kinds of
suffering. It is the ultimate method. It not only treats the individual
but the disease, too. It is an important application to cure the body, mind
and soul." Such is the demand for Yoga that Basavaraddi said his institute
had to request some of its old students to take classes. "We are bombarded
with requests for Yoga classes both by government and private institutes.
And most people attend these classes because they are obese." "I
have seen that women in the age group of25 to 40 are more concerned about
their weight," said Satwinder Kaur, 27, a trainer who passed out from
the institute, two years ago. She said people are aware of obesity-related
problems and are keen to be disease-free. "They know that obesity could
lead to other diseases and believe that Yoga would be able to help them out."
This could be the reason why Rekha Kapur took
to Yoga. Both her mother and grandmother are diabetic and she was scared that
she would become its victim. "I am very conscious of my health and
don't want to take any chances. My friends are taking classes to stay
slim and fit. As I am overweight and bordering on obesity, I know I have chances
of getting diabetes. So I joined Yoga," she said.
Anup Misra, director and head of the Department
of Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases at Fortis Flight Lieutenant Rajan Dhall
Hospital, said Yoga could be a good option to reduce obesity. But, he said,
it needs to be scientifically proved that Yoga could deal with obesity.
"Yoga has been tested to help diabetes and hypertension patients.
But there has been no clear-cut study to prove it could tackle excess weight
and obesity," said Misra.
He said a study 'is needed as the urbill1
prevalence of obesity has increased alarmingly. Almost· 50 per cent
of adult Indians in Delhi fulfill criteria for either obesity or abdominal
obesity. "The' prevalence of obesity in children has increased from 16
per cent in 2003-2004 to 29 per cent in 2006," said Misra. It leads to
30 different conditions, including cardiovascular diseases, mainly heart
diseases and stroke, diabetes, cancers of breast and' colon, he added.
But for Satwinder Kaur and her hundreds of
students, the belief in Yoga is very strong. "Yoga is the perfect answer
for a person looking for a cost-effective method, which not only cures
them but keeps them fit and thus healthy," she said.
