Brand new figure

Sir — The Telegraph has made an excellent effort to raise awareness among the common people about the perils of obesity through a detailed front-page coverage on world obesity day (“Obesity figures revised after five-year delay”, Nov 27). Youngsters have become almost addicted to spicy fast-food and monosodium glutamate-rich Chinese dishes. As a result, they are often heard suffering from diabetes and cardiac illnesses that used to be recognized as geriatric diseases even a couple of decades ago. A fast lifestyle has also brought in hypertension and depression that often lead to alcoholism, which invites more critical health troubles by making people obese. The situation has come to such a pass that some medical experts have decided to set the standard body mass index at 23, revising the earlier 25, to make Indians wake up and take note. In a country where malnutrition is still widespread among the rural population, it is a matter of shame that the privileged class has to be reminded to go slow on their epicurean fantasies.

Yours faithfully,
Anisha Agrawal, Calcutta

Sir — Perhaps legal restrictions on a person’s weight will prove more effective than marking a day on the calendar as ‘obesity day’. There are officially only two professional sectors in India where the bodyweight of employees are regularly checked: one is the armed forces and the other is aviation. An agile body is a must for soldiers, while a lightweight crew makes it easy to fly an aircraft. For sportsmen, actors, dancers and models, it is, however, imperative to stay slim and fit. But employers in other fields should remember that obese workers are less efficient, being lethargic and susceptible to illnesses. So, all government and private organizations should stipulate a weight limit for both their male and female employees in accordance with the newly-fixed standard BMI rates. Some schools in India have set an instance by banning junk-food on their premises. Can’t workplaces do the same?

Yours faithfully,
K.K. Satpathy, Bhubaneswar

Sir — Besides talking about the hazards of obesity, The Telegraph should also have issued a statutory warning to the anorexic class of modern India, that eating too little does not ensure good health, but only a ruined digestive system. There are many ‘health-conscious’ young women and some men who regularly visit gyms and follow low-carbohydrate diets. But few among them do so after consulting physicians. Worse, this self-prescribed health-regimen is followed in order to ‘look good’, not so much for staying fit. As a result, the physique weakens from within, no matter how shapely it looks. The soaring popularity of health-clubs in the city, even when most of them lack trained instructors, shows how keen the youngsters are to achieve ‘size-zero’ figures.

A friend of mine was one of the air-hostesses who were grounded by Indian Airlines last year for becoming overweight. Desperate to get back her job, she followed a drastic diet and fell sick. The company eventually re-appointed her, but since then, she has remained paranoid about saving her job. So she goes on such crash diets every now and then and has developed chronic gastro-enteric diseases about which, of course, her employers are not bothered.

Yours faithfully,
Neha Sharma, Calcutta

Down it goes

Sir — It has become a common tendency to link everything to the economic meltdown. Sometimes this leads to the drawing of utterly wrong conclusions. Such seems to be the case with the report, “Flat prices fall off eight-year perch” (Nov 20). The report suggests that the real-estate prices in and around Calcutta have dipped in some sort of a collaboration with the fiscal downturn. Readers are also provided a chart showing per-square-foot rates of flats in different localities. But it misleads the reader. The price of real estate is determined on a long-term basis. A few days of financial turmoil cannot destabilize the property business whose growth in the past has been remarkably steady, and that, through several economic crises. The report also advocates the right of real-estate traders to ask for more incentives to make up for losses incurred. This could encourage property-brokers and dealers to ask for exorbitant prices, by vending the tales of their misery.

Yours faithfully,
Kiran Binani, Calcutta

Sir — The real estate market in Calcutta has definitely been hit by the poor performance of the global economy. But buyers have not seen any price cuts yet. The prices may come down, but only if the market continues to stagger for another year or so. Real estate trade, unlike the stock market, does not respond instantly to the ups and downs of a national or international economy. Hence, it will take at least a few more months, and not a few days as the report suggests, for the prices to go downhill.

Yours faithfully,
Goutam Ash, Calcutta