蜜芽传媒

Our ever increasing battle with obesity was back in the news with results from The Millennium Cohort Study which found that one in five children born at the start of the millennium was obese by the age of 11. The study which follows 13,000 children born in the UK, showed a sudden surge in obesity between the ages of seven and 11. It also found that Children with obese mums were the most likely to be obese or overweight. And in line with new guidance, the NHS is also gearing up to make bariatric surgery more easily available to adults with severe obesity and diabetes.

In our cosmopolitan highly developed country our relationship with food has developed into much more than counting calories and making sure we eat no more than what we need. It's not just about hitting the spot when we're feeling famished. We have come to expect a wide variety of gastronomical delights to tantalise our taste buds and even have entire television channels dedicated to food alone. But we can also use what we eat for emotional comfort. Who hasn't reached for a chocolate bar to ease the pain of a broken heart or deal with a difficult day? On the other hand, in some eating disorders like anorexia, people restrict food in an extreme way to get a sense of control over their life, unfortunately at the expense of their health. Our relationship with food is complex and multi-faceted.

In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the core texts for Hindus, Krishna encourages a vegetarian diet for us to develop mercy and non violence, eating in moderation to keep the body healthy and eating with an attitude of gratitude to keep the mind peaceful. But Krishna, also talks about how food can nourish more than just the body and mind and that the consciousness with which we cook our food has a major impact on how it affects us. We already have some experience of this with our mothers' cooking - the simplest dish cooked by mum has an ability to satisfy us in a way that even the best dish from the best restaurant can't because it is cooked with love. Krishna elaborates further that when our meals are cooked as an offering of love to God or Krishna then as well as satisfying the tongue, belly and mind, that very same meal nourishes the soul. Now of course this doesn't mean that if we practise this we are no longer vulnerable to obesity but it does turn a simple, necessary daily activity into a medium for connecting with divine love, something that satisfies the very deepest parts of us.

We are blessed to have an abundance of nutrient rich food in this country and I think that if we can pay a little more attention to what we eat, how we prepare, serve and honour our food then our mealtimes can be about much more than watching the scales and body image, we can have an opportunity to make a deep spiritual connection on a daily basis in the comfort of our own homes and in the presence of our loved ones.

Show less