Don’t eat like a monk

If I’d been paid a dollar every time someone has been told “Eat less” as the best way to lose weight, I’d be twice as prosperous as Croesus and half as wealthy as a president and a presidential candidate combined.

The calorie myth—that there’s a direct correlation between the amount we eat and our weight—is one that won’t die, despite the mountain of evidence that has demonstrated that it is, to say the least, simplistic.

It’s still the stuff of most weight-loss programs, and even looking on a major health site like WebMD, you’ll read that “one pound of fat is equal to 3,500 calories” and “by shaving 500 calories a day through dietary and exercise modifications, you can lose about a pound a week.”

The basis of the approach is that all calories are equal: it doesn’t matter what you eat or drink just as long as you keep an eye on the calorie content. It was an idea that sprouted wings in the 1950s, when the sugar industry spent a king’s ransom on a campaign that shouted, “a calorie is a calorie.”

But then, it would—and everyone believed them. Their sugary products were suddenly off the hook, and fatty foods instead took the rap.

So, to all the calorie-extolling WebMDs and slimming plans out there, consider the Thai Buddhist monk. There are around 349,000 of them living in Thailand, and to eat every day they must beg for their food and follow the Buddhist ‘Middle Way’ of neither overindulging nor starving themselves. Like Goldilocks, they eat just enough.1

Despite these constraints, half of them are overweight or obese. But how? Apparently, people feel so sorry for the monks that they like to offer sweet treats, and on hot days the monks quench their thirst with a cola drink. Thirsty work, begging. 

They may not be eating large amounts, but what they’re eating is sugary—and, as a consequence, they’re becoming obese, as the country’s National Health Commission has observed.

The Ministry of Public Health is “fat-shaming” the monks by handing them special belts that measure their extending bellies (and have celebratory notches for when the monks start losing their girth).The ministry is also printing booklets that encourage well-meaning alms-givers to instead give the monks simple brown rice and vegetables.

It’s a lesson for the whole nation; as it has become wealthier, the population has become fatter as it abandons traditional staples of rice, meats and vegetables for Western junk food. At the last count, 33 percent of Thai men and 43 percent of Thai women were obese. 

The same phenomenon had been observed nine years earlier among the urban poor in sub-Saharan Africa.

There’s been an explosion in obesity levels in the population—the rate among adults increased 35 percent between 1992 and 2005—and researchers have traced the problem back to the introduction of inexpensive processed foods that are high in complex carbohydrates.

Again, the locals haven’t been eating large amounts of food—they simply couldn’t afford to do so—but they have replaced their simple diets for sugary alternatives.2

With the finger moving back to sugary foods lately, the sugar industry has been back in action with more misleading claims. “It’s not sugar, it’s a lack of exercise,” is the new clarion call, and it’s even enlisted some tame scientists to help spread the new message.

A few celebrity endorsements along the way have also helped sell the message and keep the junk food industry’s profits up. All said and done, those monks probably just sit around all day meditating. 

It’s another red herring, laced with sugar, no doubt. Yes, there are plenty of good reasons to exercise—mental wellbeing, cardiovascular health and stronger bones and joints being three—but losing weight isn’t one of them.

As heart specialist Dr Aseem Malhotra has put it: “It is time to wind back the harms caused by the junk food industry’s public relations machinery. Let us bust the myth of physical inactivity and obesity. You cannot outrun a bad diet,” he writes.3

At last, some good news for the overweight Thai monks.

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