India’s Obesity Time Bomb 

One BIG problem is that adults are constantly giving sugar and junk food to kids. They think it is a treat for kids and shows love for the child. If you try to stop them, they consider you too strict and a joy-killer. All junk food should be labelled as “Unsafe for children’s consumption”.

Glad to see this being covered. The problems aren’t unique to India but we have a few adverse issues stacked against us. South Asians appear to develop diabetes and cardiovascular disease at a lower BMI and no one is quite sure why. There is a theory that the famines mentioned in the video, especially severe during Empire, have genetically “primed” Indians to develop this. South Asians are hugely over represented among my patients in spite of making up small numbers of the overall population in the UK, and develop problems at a young age. Secondly Indian food is labour intensive so as women already shoulder most of childcare and household duties, as they have entered the workplace, they are particularly susceptible to choosing processed options that might make their life easier when feeding the family, thirdly Indian work culture is intense (see Narayana Murthy just yesterday proposing a 70 hour work week) so even young single people simply don’t have the time to make healthy choices and cook at home. Swiggy etc is too easy. The change in average waistline since my birth in the 80s has been so dramatic. But money rules all and every government welcomes in multinationals.

I used to work for a big pharma company. The sad thing about 10 years ago they were predicting a rise in diabetes in India. They were happy because that meant selling more diabetes drugs. They really werent trying to tackle the cause of the problem.

I am in my mid-twenties struggling with being overweight, there are too many factors leading to the obesity. 1. Sedentary Lifestyle 2. Overeating as a solution to managing stress. 3. Socializing with family and friends means access to more food 4. Pop-up of thousands of F&B options 5. Lack of knowledge amongst the public about proper nutrition and fitness.

There is so much money in lobbying for these companies that 99% of people in the government will never pass safety laws. The pay by companies is far far too great.

It's a common myth that we are becoming obese coz of western food, which is not entirely true. Our food such as Samosa, Vadapav, jalebi and many other fried fitters are just as bad as a burger or Pizza. What really is causing obesity in Indians is the fact that we're becoming more and more sedentary and not moving as much as we're eating. When you don't exercise or exert urself, and even if u don't eat junk food or sugary drinks, you're still prone to obesity because whatever you're eating, isn't being consumed by body entirely and genetically it gets stored as fats. One can eat as much healthy food as they want but the bottom line remains the fact that we NEED to exercise mandatorily.

Everyone here is commenting on the food. Literally, our cities/towns are designed in such a way that public access to parks, bicycle lanes etc. is limited, the choice is between an expensive (consider the median income) indoor workout facility or barely any cardio.

I’m a Keralite living in a western country. My dad used to wake me up and my sister at 6:00 AM and make us exercise before going to school everyday. We as a family works out including my mom and eat healthy. I still goes to gym, so my dad who is in his 60s. He is hitting hard in gym and lose 15 kgs recently. I’m proud of my upbringing.

I am from that era where schools didn't have canteens and we used to eat healthy home-cooked meals such as chapati, rice, and vegetables(sabzi). Which used to be healthy and tasty, but now parents are both working, don't have time to cook meals for their children's, and it's really heartbreaking because it's not just a food we're giving up on; it's the culture of our food we're letting down.

I just want to say I was overweight 97 kgs to be precise on 10th November 2021, Today is 7th November 2023 almost 2 years and I am 66.7kgs . My height is 5’8. The only advice I can give is buy a kitchen scale and be in calorie deficit. No 30 min abs workout or drinking honey lemon water is going to help you .

The worst part is we as Indians are genetically more prone to getting type 2 diabetes earlier in life. And this just makes it far worse.

Not just Western junk food but Indian food items and snacks like biriani,samsara,batatvada;sweets like gulabjamun and all the other milk products are very unhealthy.

As a fitness enthusiast, I am liking this video in hope that this warning reached thick skinned food regulators in New Delhi and unhealthy people who spoil health of their children with sugar!

I'm really surprised by this because I grew up in India and always found its non-fast food delicious. Also when I studied agriculture I learned how incredibly wise traditional Indian cooking is in terms of protein (balancing aminoacids) and vitamins. I went back to rice with dahl and/or slightly acidic curries (through yoghurt or tamarind) to get my BMI back under 25 and it worked.

Can't stop appreciating this video. It's a epidemic and no one's objecting to it

Education about health is urgently needed in the common households.

In India, food options can be just as unhealthy as in the west, and the main problem is sedentary lifestyles that don't promote enough physical activity.

The same pattern has been repeated numerous times: USA, Mexico, Philippines, etc. Western companies are often the spearhead but even without them local businessmen see the fast food business model and start to provide pizza, sugary drinks, processed snack foods, etc.

We visited my aunt's house in India few years back. She was so proud telling us how "modern" Indian food industry has become since BK, McD, KFC and other fast food chains entered Indian markets. According to her Maggi noodles was equivalent to a home cooked meal. Personally, I think we've stopped listening to our bodies and often ignore early signs.

Honestly it's shocking to hear current cardiac cases. Specially among young people (between the age of 13-45). Such cardiac cases have especially increased due to packed food.

This is so important for Indians and Indian parents to understand. We are affected 3 fold not just by our unregulated marketing of foods that we have in India we also have a genetic predisposition due to the famines of the past & and like America we don't have socialized Health care. Regardless of history, the important message is even more important that we address this issue now before we have an unfit and useless population that can't defend itself or even pay for its medical care we will see huge numbers of unnecessary deaths and in India, if you have huge medical bills that can cripple the poor and middle class you won't see any mobility. DO NOT become a cash cow for unscrupulous companies profiteering on human addiction and evil marketing tactics, no one will save you.

I came from USA to work in Kerala & I remember wealthier people were overweight, bad skin, while poorer people in were slim, glowing skin, white teeth. Made me question my eating habits!

“The industry wants to be part of the solution”, how? Isn’t their own interest that’s at stake?

A very similar situation where I live in Malaysia. Highly processed snacks and foods being sold on all corners at all times of day, horrible work-life balance so no time or energy to cook, lack of / completely decrepit community areas so no way to play sports or do physical activity without having to drive halfway across town.

Mentioning the Bengal famine without the context of it being a Churchill-led genocide is a bit misleading, don't you think?

Time. Plain and simple. Indian food takes a lot of time to prepare generally speaking. Additionally, both parents are usually working long hours these days and joint family structures are not very common anymore. This breakup of family time takes a toll on everyone.

I'm American. Please learn from our mistakes and do better than us. I'm glad you are having this conversation before you get to where we have gotten.

One of my friends makes up 79% of india's entire obesity rate man.

Seed oils combined with carbs is pure death

First world problems are becoming common in third world countries. People think eating KFC or McDonalds is cool. I'm a Ghanaian, in Ghana the youth are patronising in these foods. Home cooked meals are becoming a thing of the past. I fear this might get out of hand, fizzy drinks and sodas are also very popular here.

During the 200 years British Raj, there were around 190 famines of different scale and around 20 were of large scale. This just means that during 200 years of Raj, every year there was famine in some part of India.

It's been a year since I completely stopped eating junk food and I've lost a lot of weight and my moods have drastically improved too. I've completely lost cravings for those processed foods as well. These foods have a terrible effect on both your short term/long term health.

people eat vada pav samosa for breakfast and blame mcdonalds

Bengal famine killing 3 million people is a very underreported number! Various independent researchers put the estimate around 10 million.

My college director says: "People don't die due to hunger but die due to overeating". I have to say he is spot on.

As a teacher, I have seen children bringing lots of fast food in their tiffin. If pointed out then parents get offended.

I think it's not just the food that needs to be changed but the mental health also needs to be address. They both are linked together. Having a bad day, people will junk and now too much junk food will put them into bad mental health.

as an Indian myself working in a metropolitan, healthy food is an after-thought, there are new food startups that are aiming at healthy low calorie and high protein food at fast food speeds, but it will take time to blend in the unhealthy food scene, restaurants, street vendors and cloud kitchens are also trying to include health options ,also a misconception that vegetarian foods don't have protein, milk, butter-milk and curd are excellent sources of protein the calorie/gram of protein is comparable to meats like pork and beef.

10 years ago this story would have been seen as unthinkable. It's amazing how fast the world economy is developing.

Indian food rocks! Literally a gift from above! I’m a vegetarian & it’s heavenly. I’m not shocked by India being hit by obesity.

The evil audacity of corporations knows no bounds.

Indian food is divine

As an obese indian, i can relate to it a lot

real crisis occurs after college, when one starts earning money and is alone in a different city. With no cooking knowledge and ordering food daily, that's what is happening atleast in my case

I had to lol at the “much of India’s history has been blighted by famine” bit. Much of Indian history hasn’t actually been blighted by famine…the famines she’s referring to were actually created by the Brits during their oppressive 200 year rule. It’s not like India and Indians somehow are just naturally predisposed to famines.

I worked in India for 6 months 7 years ago and I remember seeing how all my Indian coworkers ate and was shocked more weren’t obese. All they ate was fried carbs, naan, and rice. We were all in our mid 20s, and some I swear never ate a vegetable the entire time if it wasn’t fried or a pizza topping

Even indian food is unhealthy. Lots of deep fried pakoras, samosas, diwali sweets, lots of oil and ghee in vegetables. Regulating Packaged food alone is not enough

I thought India was into yoga and curry very much like dhalsim

As Indian , and my mum is a owner of dry fruits and natural products shop. One thing we noticed , we few people really care abt the food they consume. They want fast food .

1 in 4 Indians overweight or obese - hard to believe this statistic - I haven't seen so large a fraction of overweight/obese people (men) at least in my locality. But as far as Indian women go, post wedding, they have generally become obese, at least since 3 - 4 decades even when fast-food wasn't an option - this being true even among vegetarian (Brahmin/Jain) women.

It is truly baffling how in a country where a large portion of the population is starving, there is an obesity problem. This is the biggest indicator of a huge wealth gap and class gap within the country.

It’s fascinating to see how u people highlighted a much important topic in everyone’s lives but unfortunately 99% of people don’t read the label here so it’s a long way to reach that level of awareness where brand matters and taste matters for people 👍👍👍

Nobody, I mean nobody reads the calorie count and portion size given on the back of processed foods. This should be taught early on what needs to be consumed. I used to enjoy a glass of Bourvita and processed cereals for breakfast. That's an easy 800-1000 calories with a high sugar count. And yet I used to still feel hungry by Lunchtime. Glad at 32 years old I have cut down on many of these things and I wish I had known some of these things a lot earlier.

No body ate out 2023 years ago, mc Donald’s was so expensive you couldn’t afford it. Everyone cooked at home when a guest came and the local sweet maker or savoury maker would cook things from scratch in their shop and you would bring them over once in a blue moon. Even fruit juice was impossibly expensive. The only occasional treat was maggi noodles which did make you feel sick. Cook at home from scratch and you won’t be obese.

Every place in the world it’s hard to get healthy food. The food companies load everything up with sugar or a chemical substitute, and salt. It’s SICK

gluttony is a sin. excessive eating and drinking is the problem.

This is an important problem. It's worldwide. Maybe it's due to a combination of exercising less and eating more, now that our incomes are rising, giving us the ability to indulge our instincts to rest and to eat, which we evolved over millions of years of struggle to feed ourselves in the midst of chronic scarcity. It will take action to fight our innate tendencies: nutrition and exercise education in school and in media, exercise periods in school, regulation of food advertising and labeling, taxes on some items like soda.

If they stop eating the processed junk food and revert to rice, dalithoy, and a different vegetable upkari, the problem disappears.

India better get on board with Chili and put some strong regulations on this processed foods. They already know the repercussions.

The Cities have this kind of thinking but on normal towns and villages people don't like eating outside. Mostly people prefer home made food except cities where the people spend less time to take care of themselves.

Majority of people in India think having more weight is healthy. Thin & slim people in Indis are looked with contempt.

As a chilean, I'm really proud of our government for this practice. Manipulating children into making bad dietary choices, which affect their health should be banned worldwide.

If people are mindless sheep then it's not anybodys fault but their own. Theyre not kids who need to be taught what to eat and what not.

Indian cuisine is one of the best in the world. It’s a shame that they put junk food over their artisan cuisine

You can't let the sweet shop to decide if sweets are healthy or not, of course they will say it is healthy.

In 1960, before the explosion of fast food and heavily processed food, the US obesity rate was about 15%. Today it is approaching 40%, the highest rate of any country except for a few Pacific island nations. Other than those countries, only several Mideast nations are anywhere near the US obesity rate.

In semi rural and rural areas children are still lean and healthy Most obese kids are in semi urban and urban areas

One of the areas that gets under discussed is how often we actually cook and the trend with both parents working, its less, leading to quick solutions like packaged or fast food.

That's a shame. India has a ton of healthy, delicious food. I don't understand why people would settle for junk food over traditional Indian food

Carnivore Diet is the healthiest way to eat.

Urban kids are seriously getting in influence of this 😢😢

Don't worry my Indian friends, we in America have been battling this epidemic for awhile now. It doesn't get better, but you will learn to live with the fatties (myself included).

Well, India is being westernized, from culture to music to food and lifestyle so it's only matter of time we start seeing the American effects replay in Indian societies.

I appreciate the sentiment behind this video, it needs to be spoken more about in Indian households and the government should be playing more of an active role. You won't see the consequences on society and health systems till decades later, so it's important to act now. The famine the narrator mentioned was directly caused by the British empire though. That was a questionable omission of detail and needed to be included

Another contributing factor is our extremely carb heavy and very low in protein diet.

Indians moving away from traditional food is the main cause added with irregular eating timings and lack of physical exercise.

Slayyy Bloomberg mentioning the Bengal famine & India's history of malnutrition without mentioning colonization / the British Raj / The British East India company

Try to encourage kids to drink everyday ABC(Apple+Beetroot +carrots) juice and sweet potato and yam these thing will reduce sugar cravings. If kids start liking green dhaniya chatni with boiled potatoes ,they will stop craving for dakt too.

It's not just about physical health, when I was around 15 I was struggling with my academics alot, it's only now years later that i realised that my poor diet at the time had a direct influence on that as well.

I simplified what I eat; rice, lentils, sweet potatoes, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, beans, apples, berries, bananas, occasionally nuts, avocado, and a few other foods. Seems to be working.

Much needed, in the right time. I think that It is imperative for the gov to focus on these issues. As Not only is the overall health of the country declining, we are left out on our own to deal with most of these things.

I m watching this while sitting in Domino's 😅😅😅

0:42 "This is not simply a story of individuals making unhealthy lifestyle choices". Yes, it is. That has always been the reason for overweight and obesity. But that does not mean those people deserve scorn. If you have grown up in a society of scarcity, it is only normal to eat whenever you can, and eat more. It's a survival technique. But as society becomes more prosperous and abundant, people need new ways of thinking about food. They need to learn how not to eat too much, rather than too little. And frankly, I am skeptical that eating a Big Mac is more or less unhealthy than eating Butter Chicken.

Every country goes through the cycle of salad -> mcdonald's -> salad

Donot eat junk food. Eat less and early at night time. Be less stressful. If you see some street food makes they put tons of butter, cheese in it. Eat simple dosas like plain dosa, onion dosa, etc but donot eat cheese dosa, butter dosa, etc. Eat simple food and Eat more fruits. People are seeing india as a great market due to huge population because of which they are just dumping every thing in india.

India is experiencing what US started facing eons ago, obesity acts as a harbinger of growth in society. Like it or not, obesity is a scourge that every society needs to push forward.

This is particularly sad because Indian home cooking is (imho) the tastiest and most nutritious in the world, as long as you avoid the deep frying and ultra-sweet desserts.

Education, regulation, then double taxation on junk food. Use those extra taxes to educate & treat the sick.

I've never seen a middle aged Indian that isn't overweight lol

No cola , pepsi or McDonald's name in thumbnail😂😅😅

One big overlooked factor: Stress: competitive exams, jobs, targets, family drama, jealousy, show off cultures, unemployment. High cortisol levels lead to pre-diabetes and heart issues.

Its simply the amount of carbs you eat in a day vs the amount you burn. And Indian food is full of carbs and unhealthy oil. Switching to healthy oil and being mindful of the carb intake could bring some changes instead of following harsh diet.

High carbohydrate and low protein

Please don't say Bengal famine killed, say Winston Churchill killed by inducing famine. Westerns were real draconian in past

All the butter and deep fried food in traditional indian food doesn't help either.

The logic is simple - cut off sugar from your life, start exercising daily, eat fresh vegetables and fruits, and don't consume any preserved or frozen garbage. It can be done with a little bit of self-control or else face the consequences later on in your life.

traditional indian snack foods like chana and daal are pretty healthy, but it seems they are getting displaced by the more calorically dense and less sating American style snack foods. We could blame the companies making and marketing these, but the fact is they've had decades worth of product research with which they've engineered some delicious stuff. It's hard to stay away from fries, kettle cooked potato chips, soda, etc.

I knew obesity was an issue in some countries around the world (especially some western countries), but I never would have thought it's an emerging issue in a country like India. I suppose the lower cost of, ease of access to and aggressive marketing of food that is terrible for your health are some of the key reasons why obesity is a now a global issue.

Dear India Welcome to AMerica

Mexico amazingly passed the US in obesity. Bangladesh is still among the very lowest in obesity rates. will that change in the near future?