One more problem…

Ukrainian society has not even begun to think about “food culture.” Neither at state level, nor at individual levels do people pay proper attention to this issue for different reasons. We are busy with other things, aren’t we?

Ukrainian culinary traditions are quite “substantial.” It is natural, as our ancestors had to work physically a lot. But in the age of offices this system of nourishing, oriented on considerable energy expenditures, undoubtedly needs revision.

We can have different conversations with different people on this issue. We picked a person, who felt in full the ill effects of what our society ignores. Alla Tsvietkova managed to lose 86 kilos and learned to walk and live again. Her disease (which began from an eating disorder) made her study everything about the “relationships” between people and food. Thanks to this, Alla succeeded in recovering, changed her attitude towards food (which is, according to her, more important than the lost kilos) and designed her own weight normalization program.

Does Ukrainian society have an obesity problem, and is it properly assessed by those whose duty is to solve it?

“This problem is not only underestimated, many doubt its existence. At the same time every second person in the country suffers from food addiction. Is there at least one hospital for the obese people in Ukraine, like those in Switzerland, England or the USA? Do hospitals examine those whose weight is 130 kilos, so that he will be able to pluck up his spirit and solve the most important health problem? There is not a single dietary institute or official medical department, devoted to obesity issues or which would propagate a healthy life style. Large-scale propaganda should be used to solve the problem. Rather than political advertisements on the billboards in downtown, there should be posters with ‘Think, what you eat.’ Eating should be a conscious process. Moreover, Ukraine has low quality products. The USA adopted state programs aimed at food quality change. For example, according to one of them, some substances are added to white flour so that people would eat less high-calorie food. Has anybody thought how many people die from obesity? Our medicine goes mainly to obese people. We do not need to treat them or fill them with pills! They need to lose weight! Non-insulinized diabetes can be treated with sixth months of proper eating. At the same time pharmaceutical concerns and plants are working, medication is bought from foreign companies… Why use drugs on type 2 diabetes? Because it is profitable for somebody that someone ‘eats,’ not just harmful food, but also harmful medicines. In the entire world diabetes treatment starts from eating right.

“There is a great number of reasons that make a person eat more, than s/he needs for normal life. First of all, there are stresses and problems with surrounding people. When life falls apart, food relieves. People subconsciously try to compensate the lack of friends and people’s kindness with food. Food is the closest friend. It will never cheat and it will always be close. What can be better than coming back from work in the evening and cooking your favorite food, and then to sit in front of the TV and sink into oblivion? This condition can be called food addiction. A person, taking drugs, loses contact with reality and does not care what is happening around them. But drug addictions are discussed, they are treated and judged. It is easier to eat.”

Speaking of the food culture concept, what does it mean and at what age should one be acquainted with it?

“In early childhood. A child needs to receive a normal combination of products that facilitate metabolism, not potatoes with combined fats. If a person eats properly in their early childhood, s/he will never like the taste of potatoes with meat. What about school? How can they feed patties, pizzas and ‘Snikers’ to children? Some institutions are more aware, and we have received a proposition to develop an eating program for the preschool establishments.

“First, the amount of food should not exceed 350 grams at a time. Second, correct eating habits, the ability to cook and combine food in the most useful for the body way. Then come hunger centers. It is a medical issue. Hunger center depends not only on what we eat, but on our psychosomatic condition. Nourishing is not only physiology, but also psychology and psychosomatics. A person is born, s/he is slapped and fed immediately. When our life slaps us, we immediately want to ‘eat up’ the problem. There is non-malignant and malignant appetite. Malignant appetite appears, for example, when we are bored and we start eating.

“Many people talk about the ‘French phenomenon.’ French eat very diverse foods, but the portions seem to be extremely small for us, we gulp them without noticing. And French people practically do not have the problems with obesity.

If this problem reaches such scale, apparently, it needs a solution at state level. Who should be in charge of it?

“Certainly the Ministry of Health. As far as I know, there are obesity centers at the regional endocrinology clinics. But they work according to the standard pattern. The first variant is to start a starvation diet, forgetting that hunger is not a way to treat obesity. After a 30-day starvation patients gain the lost weight and often even more. The second variant is to make a diet and to send the patient home. What if a person cannot stick to it? Do the doctors advise the patient, check how s/he sticks to the diet; do they solve his/her problems that appear during the diet course? It is not enough to write a diet scheme, it is necessary to do everything so that the person will be able and want to follow the scheme.

“Let us go to school now. Almost every day I see kids rush to the closest kiosk to buy chips, sugar candies and chocolate bars. There is a private entrepreneur in almost every school with such products. As a result our children are sick. They gain excess weight; they do not want and cannot do sports. At this stage, we can say, their personality is half destroyed. Doesn’t our country need the new generation? It should be profitable for the country to have its nation healthy.”

What is the main disadvantage of the majority of diets?

“Undoubtedly, each diet or weight loss programs have their own rationale. The thing is that all people are different. No diet gives a stable result for several reasons. First, a physiological food norm is not defined for each person. Second, eating habits are not acquired during the diet course. It means that a person starts on a diet, endures for two-three months and then comes back to former eating habits. I developed a program, based on the learning principle: we learn to cook, think and eat. But the main problem, which a person needs to decide, if s/he wants to lose weight, is to learn not to want to eat. Not to control himself, not to put much effort to push away the plate of food and secretly dream about it, they must actually not want it. It can be achieved through work, through developing correct eating habits and by changes, mainly in physiology and psychology. Food is, first of all, energetic information. At the beginning we need to purify ourselves of harmful information, rebuild our organism for accepting new forms of nourishment, and then changes at the psychological level will take place. Other things do not work. The main problem is that it is difficult to learn this by oneself, although it is possible. It is better to have someone close to you, who has already gone through it.”

There was a period when you weighed 180 kilos. Where did you find the strength for such a struggle?

“Inside myself. It is called dignity. I wanted to survive very much, to have a baby. I survived. I lost weight. I do not have a baby yet, but I am convinced that I will. I was imprisoned for eight years in my apartment. Minus 40 kilos – plus 30. Minus 30 – plus 40. Minus 15 – plus 25. It lasted for 16 years. I have learned to think first and then to eat. One more important aspect is patience. To feel hunger is such a negative emotion, as hatred, jealousy or anger. You need to learn to be patient, or more exactly not to feel! Any anger, tiredness, depression, or hunger.

“There were so many experts, doctors, people with extrasensory perception, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and yogis along the road. But I am totally convinced in one thing – any fat person, who tries to recover from their food addiction, needs kindness. Unfortunately, our society cannot be compassionate or help its neighbor yet. That is why each of us should cultivate these feelings.

The main rules of healthy nourishing: