Obesity epidemic of India

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Obesity in India is on the rise. It has reached enormous proportions. As I sit and count at airports, the number of women who look obviously overweight and obese, the figures I get is 8 out of 10. And this is around same in children of all sexes and around 6 in 10 men show clearcut overweight and obesity that is obvious even to naked eye. Anthropometric measurements might reveal more of them.  What are the likely causes? I have a theory that starts analysing these cases right from the 2000s or previous century. Junk food eating and sedantry lifestyle had already given an upward push to obesity in last century. And this also gave rise to diabetes mellitus in both men and women. Hence, such mothers also had diabetes in pregnancy. Some who did not have diabetes otherwise had gestational diabetes. From 2000 to 2026 prevalence of gestational diabetes has risen in india. It has even spread to rural areas and recent national data gives a figure of 22.4% which is almost 1 in 4 pregnant mot...
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Why review article writing for academic journals is no more fun?

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Review article writing for academic journals used to be fun. Putting all the available data and updates into a systematic way that would be useful for readers and students. But this seems to be a thing of the past. Publishing houses and journal editors have made this simple process cumbersome and irritating thanks to the confines of structure in which you are supposed to put forth your points. 

1. This does not actually help the readers in any way. Readers want a simple article that has all the information and is comprehensive and easy to decipher. Why should readers be bothered to know on how you gathered your data and information? But journals now insist on methodology even for review article. It is a useless exercise.

2. Even if authors put the methodology, how are editors going to confirm that it is an accurate one?

3. What about the author's own expertise in the subject? If the author is an expert on the subject, the author would intuitively know what is right and wrong and put things in order and in right perspective. It is a matter of trust and adding methodology removes that trust. 

4. Review article writing has to be free flow and starting from anatomy to pathology to symptoms to tests and treatment and future of the research. But by putting confines, this process is hampered and does not result in a good and understandable article. It gets boring even for readers.

5. The editors are blurring the difference between a review article and an original research article. This has to be avoidable at all costs. 

6. Variety in review is abolished and monotony sets in with newer method of writing reviews. 

Templates and formats are hurdles to free flow thinking. The important aim to make readers understand is defeated by templates. Even though academic articles are meant for experts and intellectuals, it is not that they are not to be read by lay people. By increasing the difference between academic writing and regular writing, you are snatching this wealth of information from hands of the lay people. 

Please keep reviews and original research articles in their separate compartments and do not mix them. 

Change should be for improvement and not deterioration. If changes causes confusion and is boring for readers, it should be not done. 

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