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Reflection On Diet And Nutrition

Decent Essays

As a child growing up in an impoverished small village in the sub-Saharan country of Ghana, West Africa, I often wondered why people came in different sizes and shapes. At Since from an early age I was we were taught that we were are all created equal and , it’s fair to say that I may have taken those teachings too literal. As much as heredity plays a part in a person’s physique as I’ve grown to learn, I couldn't intuitively help but wonder if diet and nutrition were contributing factors as well when I was young.
At a very tender age, I struggled with the generally accepted cultural misconception that associated obesity with wealth in Ghana. It soon became clear to me that the supposedly “rich people food” which tend to be mostly processed and high in fats weren’t better than the cheaper staple food which were primarily natural grains and vegetables. That is to say, not all foods are created equal. Nonetheless, that still did not answer my questions of how and why; how did the poor who could not afford much of the “good stuff” have the energy to work on farms all day while the rich who ate the “best stuff” struggled to keep up with the least physical activity? My curiosity led me to investigate the truth for myself and before long I came to the realization that looking big or fat is actually unhealthy even if it was a sign of wealth in our society.
For a young girl of about seven years of age, living in this society/environment, it was a huge revelation. What is wealth

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