IIPM’s Arindam Chaudhuri gives great fitness tips on World Diabetes Day

November 18: In a Facebook post on World Diabetes Day, Dr. Arindam Chaudhuri, Honorary Director of IIPM Think Tank, wrote about why Body PositiveMovement is unscientific and why Belly Fat is the most crucial thing we need to be careful about. His post said: On #WorldDiabetesDay, try to remember “PET BHAR KE MAT KHA “BELLY FAT REDUCE KAR BETA” should be your advice to anyone you love!!

And yes, Say no to body shaming, but make no mistake, the body-positive movement is harmful and unscientific! And the biggest curse that you/your parents can give anyone is— PET BHAR KE KHAALE BETA (Eat till your stomach is absolutely full).

Major research on 15000 people by Mayo Clinic concluded that Belly Fat, in particular, is twice as risky as High-Risk #Obesity— meaning those with belly fat are at double the risk of dying compared to those who are obese. And needless to say, Belly Fat = #Diabetes today or tomorrow.

After gaining a lot of weight from early 2003 to 2006 due to my own lack of focus, for the last 15 years, I have been totally focused on better health, and it’s even a part of my leadership workshops. Now I am in my 8th year of regular exercising, martial arts and a good diet, and at almost 51 age, I now feel I’m in better shape than ever before!

Of course, we can all meet with accidents or, for example, get cancer without any reason, but the idea is to try and live happily and fit till the last day! The truth is when you don’t smoke or drink; you do reduce your chances of cancer hugely!

I have deducted the salaries of overweight seniors in my organisation – who opted for the weight-linked salary structure!!  Yes, I love health-conscious fit people.

My father was overweight and mostly fat throughout his life. I loved him more than I loved anyone else in this world!! A lot of my closest friends are fat, and I love them today! So I am all for loving people irrespective of their religion, race, or body shape. And BODY SHAMING is totally not acceptable.

But just like I have scientific reasons to believe that religious people are low IQ similarly I find the body positive movement uneducated, unscientific and outright illogical. It is pure and simple lazy living in denial of science. While body shaming is shameful, the opposite of it isn’t body positive. That’s irrational – however much it hurts.

That, too, especially since it’s carried out on social media to get acceptance!!

No doctor agrees with the body-positive movement (research showed that only 1.5% of them agreed). All research and scientific evidence points out the undeniable fact that extra weight is the key reason behind Hypertension, Diabetes, Kidney issues, and thus, early death (apart from infertility, of course)

And most importantly, it’s untrue that appreciating fitness is a social media learnt trait. Research has shown that even newborns react more positively towards fit people!!

So instead of living in denial. Get up. Get ready. Exercise before starting your day. And far more importantly, eat good food – but less. Really less.  As the saying goes- eat your food like medicine today unless you want to eat medicines like food tomorrow.

Get fit for your own sake, get fit for the people you love and get fit to manage your finances better (because we earn for our whole life at the end of the day to spend on our hospitalisation expenses as we grow old) And yes, appreciate every fit person around you. That fit body is a result of a lot of hard work, sincerity, focus and control over gluttony. It didn’t come by being lazy and eating fast food and accumulating cholesterol.

Stay fit. Consult your doctor regularly. Stay away from Diabetes.