| --by XingQuan (Kevin) Dai L.Ac. O.M.D. |
— Two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese.
— Over the past three decades, the number of obese individuals has more than doubled.
As a country, we're getting fatter. Fast.
Each year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updates its series of maps that show how the rate of obesity is expanding. States where, as recently as 1990, 10 percent or fewer adult residents were obese now report levels double that. In the latest edition of the maps, three states estimate that a third of all adults are obese.
Drinking slimming tea (a laxative), staying on a diet, and going to the gym frequently are widely used weight-loss methods. But eating certain foods or being pierced by fine silver needles may also help you to get rid of excessive weight.
Most people believe that obesity results from eating too much, which is certainly true in most cases. But it fails to explain why some people gain weight even though they eat little and drink lots of water while others keep slim though they eat a big dinner every day.
It is not simply the case that the more you eat, the more weight you gain, Whether your stomach and spleen work well plays a much more important role.
According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the spleen, together with the stomach, digest and absorb nutrients (the spleen function in TCM differs from that in Western medicine). TCM holds that the spleen is responsible for sending the nutrients from the stomach to all the organs, and also for expelling excessive body fluid. If the spleen doesn't function well, excessive body fluid will collect and turn into fat.
The function of the organs, including the spleen, declines with aging. That's why most middle-aged and old people find themselves gaining weight easily, as for young people, unhealthy eating habits may cause malfunction of the stomach and spleen and leads to fat collection.
