This isn’t about willpower. It’s about eating habits so common in Indian households that they no longer feel like habits. Because nothing about it ever felt urgent, most patients who walk into a doctor’s clinic convinced their health problem is complicated turn out to have a simpler issue: a diet that has slipped out of shape over several years without anyone noticing,.
Blood pressure rises without warning signs. “Blood sugar drifts upward long before it crosses a diagnostic line. At the same time, it’s still just a habit, not a diagnosis. Rice and roti portions in most homes are roughly the same size as they were three decades ago, when more people did physical labor or walked long distances daily. The food hasn’t changed. The lifestyle around it has, and portions haven’t kept pace. Home-cooked food gets credit for being healthier than packaged food, and mostly it is, except for salt and sugar, which get added by hand and by habit rather than by measurement. Eating dinner late and going straight to bed afterward is common in many Indian households, especially in cities where work runs late. Few people realize how much this affects digestion, sleep, and, over the years, metabolic health. It usually is.
A habit built up over ten years is much easier to correct,” Dr Sonal Mhatre, BHMS, Senior Manager-Clinical Operations at Livlong 365, tells Health Shots . Hypertension and Type 2 diabetes don’t care where the salt or sugar came from. Because it doesn’t come with a label, pickles, papad, an extra spoon of sugar in tea, a second dessert at a family function- none of it registers as a diet problem. Because it doesn’t feel medical, it’s a detail almost no patient thinks to mention to a doctor,.
The same portion eaten today, after a short commute and a desk job, is a different equation.
