Food is a focal point of all human relationships. It is an important part of our cultural heritage and national identity. Be it at a children’s birthday or a holy feast, we gather together to share love, make memories, and enjoy food, but too much food kills us as surely as it gives us life.
Excess food results in excess weight. Once you perceive the unsightly bulges, the battle begins. Fat kills. Fat wins. It is not air, it is not water, it is food that kills.
Another diet begins in an endless cycle of feasting vs dieting.
It is a fact that periodically, frequently, or constantly we prefer to practise some kind of diet rather than apply a healthy lifestyle.
Diet culture is everywhere. Even children from ages 7-9 have been reported as “trying to lose weight”. We are not blameless. We are fat because we make ourselves fat.
Despite our highly developed scientific knowledge we elude the truth: “we eat to live not live to eat.”
For over 20 centuries, “the history of our world is the record of man in quest of his bread and butter.” Now we find ourselves with too much bread and too much butter. Today, when we eat, we seek enjoyment, not survival. The time to shed those undesirable, deadly fat is not tomorrow, but now.
In science heaven, they have discovered a new diet that will end all diets. It’s a miracle cure that has no side-effects, and will change the world.
Is this the beginning of a future without fat?
What is this wonder drug that has headlines squealing with delight. Call it a drug, a medication, or a chemical substance, semaglutide was discovered by accident. Invented to help diabetics regulate blood glucose levels, Ozempic (a commercial name, also Wegovy), by chance reduces weight.
Semaglutide was first tested on mice. Once found effective, its researchers progressed to clinical trials. It was approved for medical use in 2017. Weight loss was not the aim. It emerged as a lucky side effect approved for use in 2021, for adults and children 12 and up.
Its ability to help its users lose weight resulted in an outcry from hundreds of organisations. Everybody wants it. Celebrities line up in droves. Some of the rich and famous include Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, Adele, Whoopi Goldberg, Kate Winslet, Khloe Kardashian, some mention of Taylor Swift and Meghan Markle. No mention yet of Donald Trump.
Famous Canadian columnist Barbara Kay proclaims in The National Post “the death of obesity politics”. Kay calls it “the fat liberation movement”. “The arrival of those drugs will lead to the conquering of obesity, putting an end to fat, once and for all.”
Likened to what eyeglasses are to near- or far-sighted people, Ozempic is now the language of a miracle cure. Yet in a world marked by scientific uncertainty, the promise of a magic elixir is the ultimate expression of science vanquishing the bad enemy.
Social media is abuzz with talk on Ozempic. It is available everywhere, for everyone — at a price.
An injectable medication, without insurance will cost $997, $58 per month every month. Ozempic is expensive, hard to get, and is a lifetime commitment. Now, one of the most sought-after prescriptions on the market, there is a shortage of the drug for diabetics themselves. Often it is unrealistic and unattainable.
If Ozempic is the answer for some, lifestyle is the answer for all.
What is essential is disposing of fat, without further ado.
The astounding results of a study conducted by the National Institute of Health (NIH) should cause us to drop our fork and knife and instantly walk away from the dinner table. “Because of the magnitude and strength of the study, it is irrefutable,” says Donna Ryan, MD. “It is absolutely convincing and therefore it is frightening.” Three decades of research, Ryan evaluated 900,000 people who were cancer-free when the study began, the study concluded that excess weight may account for 11 forms of cancer, eight more than was previously known.
Excess weight is responsible for 14 per cent of cancer deaths in men and 20 per cent in women. In women, too much body fat increases the amount of estrogen in the blood, thereby raising the level of insulin — causing cells to multiply.
The lifespan of obese individuals is decidedly a short one compared to others and not a happy one at that. The extra weight affects the locomotive system from the ankles, knees, hips, spinal column, and the muscles, which so clogged with fat cannot function properly.
How many cancers may be linked to excess fat? Let us count the ways: breast cancer, correctal, esophhagal, kidney, gall-bladder, uterine, pancreatic, and liver cancer.
Add to obesity, hypertension, diabetes, advancing age —the risks for early death keep multiplying.
Obesity makes cancer hard to diagnose, hard to treat, and harder to remove surgically.
There is only one answer: shed the excess fat, by hook or by crook.
Our profound joy of food is both a necessity and a comfort. Never give up this potent elixir.
Just reduce your intake, remove the excess. Find any way to prevent fat, to prevent disease, to prevent death.
“Let food be thy medicine, thy medicine shall be thy food.”
Hippocrates (460-375 BC)
* A version of this article appears in print in the 17 April, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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