The calories going in are greater than the calories going out (burned). That is the cause of cat obesity. It is not clever science and you don’t need clever diets and animal behaviorists to figure out how to fix the problem. You simply have to look at the Jeremy Kyle show on American and British television and observe the lifestyles of the participants.
A lot of the protagonists on the Jeremy Kyle show are fat. In the UK a lot of them have chosen the welfare benefits lifestyle over work because it pays better. Philpott, the monster who inadvertently but recklessly killed six of his 17 kids, is the master of this lifestyle. His net income after tax was almost £60,000 pa which equates to £100,000 earned income. He didn’t earn a penny of it.
Side Notes:
- Welfare benefits are essential and a “safety net” when well directed and in the right amount. The welfare system in the UK has lost its way.
- According to some vets and commentators, cat obesity is at epidemic proportions.
A lot of people in the UK choose to live off benefits. It is not their fault. Generally, people choose the easy route and the government has provided it. However the easy route has downsides in exactly the same way that there are downsides to the cushy life of the well serviced domestic cat.
The classic Jeremy Kyle participant gets up late, turns on the television and eats for pleasure. What else? Not much happens beyond that simple existence except for breeding to get more welfare benefits (child benefit) accompanied by the many domestic rows born out of idleness. The devil enters the idle mind.
There is a parallel between people living on benefits as a lifestyle choice and obese domestic cats 😉
The first domestic cats were African/Asian wildcats. They wanted an easier life and they found it around human settlements because the farmer’s grain store attracted a reservoir of rodents, which is perfect cat food.
Over a period of 9,000 years that simple, starting arrangement has got out of hand, in some households. The obese cat behaves like a Jeremy Kyle participant. He lacks mental stimulation, so he sleeps. He gets bored, so he eats. The modern day domestic cat can be a comfort eater just like a human. He lacks challenges both mental and physical which are vital to mental and physical health. He eats junk food just like his human counterpart.
We don’t know how bad this lifestyle is for health. Being cosseted by humans takes away the dangers of the outside, which is a benefit, health-wise, but a lot of cat health problems come from eating poor cat food to excess and not doing any exercise. Cat diabetes comes to mind and that disease is on the rise. It is our fault.
A cat owner plays a similar role to the government. The government of Britain has been too generous with benefits, which is not good for people. People need to have goals and be challenged to be healthy. Cat owners who just plonk down the food and more or less treat their cat as an adornment for the home are doing a disservice to their cat.
The domestic cat needs to find a bit of what he had 9,000 years ago; some challenges. It is up to us to provide it together with the correct amount of good food. Obese cats need to eat less, eat better and exercise more. Only people can manage that change.
I have never heard of this show it sounds very odd. I haven’t had a tv for years – I miss out on these things. TV rots the soul and makes everybody insecure and unhappy for the mostpart. Even when you try to take control of what you watch – it’s still there one way or another.
Anyhow – I put the dry junk food they love in these little balls so they must roll them around to get one or 2 pellets of food out at a time. Its very sweet watching them roll the balls around. Gigi has become a pro at ‘handball’ – she can knock out a pellet a minute or less time even. Gig is at risk of being overweight now – they both are since their operations and I can see it – they are indoor cats so its hard to avoid obesity in many ways. They need to play alot and run around a lot. I have had to clamp down on Gigi and make her eat wet food more. She was starting to wait for the ‘handballs” to be refilled to eat so I have started only giving all 2 of them biscuits when Gigi has given in and eaten a good chunk of wet food. Otherwise I won’t give them dry. Its hard with 3 cats. Until Gigi eats wet food as soon as I put it down I am on the watch and making sure she isn’t holding out to only eat dry food. I give a few extra biscuits on the weekend, manually, as a treat, because I am home with them. Gig somehow got hooked on the dry when I wasn’t looking, it was very quick.
So I am trying hard to make sure they don’t get overweight. Never myself been on the dole and I hope I never am. There are important uses for it. Besides Switzerland has a very particular and extremely good system that means it works as it is supposed to – people’s lives don’t fall apart and those who are lazy can’t be because you basically have to work when you are on welfare here in some senses. Switzerland is the best country in the world for things like this – the most well thought out and constructed system you will ever find – and by such a long long way. I would suggest to anyone who quetions it to look it up on google, you will be surprised. I am assuming the info is there although I found out myself how it works just by being here.
I agree with you, Marc, that tv rots the soul. I also have heard that the Swiss system is very good. From my understanding it’s the only country in the world where socialism really works. You have socialized medicine, but it didn’t bankrupt the country or decrease the quality of care. I didn’t know why it worked, but the fact that employment is required even if you are receiving benefits probably helps. Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson started that here and it went national for awhile under President Clinton. But now almost all of those requirements to work if you are getting welfare have been watered down. I believe in Capitalism because it makes people work, as Rudolph mentioned. There is something good about being self sufficient, and we really do need to be forced to do it. Most of us just don’t have that much will power. Even though we know working is better for us than sitting around watching tv and eating junk, it’s so easy to do the latter. But luckily, I have always had to work to earn a living, and the work itself has been a blessing to me and to other people. But I do think Switzerland has it right, because without help many people do end up in dire straights, often through no fault of their own. We don’t want people starving in the streets. But we also don’t want people dying from obesity because they just sit around collecting welfare benefits and watching tv. I do think individuals should do more to help others, so that the government could do less. I also like the idea of some type of work being required to collect benefits. Some people can work, but not enough to make a good living or they aren’t academically gifted enough to go to back to school to get the really good paying jobs. I don’t mind those who are physically or mentally challenged in some way getting government benefits to help them make ends meet so long as they are still doing whatever they are capable of. It’s like with our cats– we aren’t (most of us) going to require that they hunt and catch all their food. But we can give them play times before they eat which mimic the hunt before a kill. We can limit their intake of food and provide stimulating experiences, so that even though their basic needs are always met they still experience physical and mental challenges which are needed for good mental and physical health. Humans are no different in respect to those needs.
I agree with you Ruth. With all what you said. I am depressed if I don’t have a job and I am very lazy too when that happens. I need a job to feel well.
This article hits close to home because lately I have been finding the whole indoor cat thing extra hard. The main reason for this is Gigi, who used to be crazy and full of energy but who has now gotten a bit lazy and unmotivated. I find this to be terribly distressing and I encourage her as much as possible to play but she sometimes can’t be bothered and just won’t join in. This is the single thing that has started to make me very unhappy because Gigi was so tenacious and active when she was smaller. I am also having to control her so she doesn’t get hooked entirely on dry food. I think the operation really slowed her down and being stuck inside. It’s hard not to be sad and then project it back onto her when I worry about her well being. I am sure she senses I am unhappy about her. I really love her so much and I hope we can work things out so she is a bit more active and motivated. The other two are doing ok for the moment.
Gigi is becoming a Jeremy Kyle type cat 😉 Just joking. This seems to be a combination of the operation (I think you are referring to spaying as I have forgetten) and being indoors. I wonder if you could try wet food exclusively for a while to see if she picks up. She may not but dry food can play havoc with blood sugar levels which can affect activity levels. This is a pure guess.
I am not giving any of them dry food until when I go to bed and then it’s on;y a little bit each. That way she is forced to eat the wet food. I have seen her starting to eat it again. She is a candidate for becoming a dry food addict so I have to be really careful and I am.
The addiction thing is probably the sugar rush she gets. Cats can get hypoglycemic on dry cat food and need more food with high sugar to get back to normal.
You are a brilliant cat caretaker and no one could do better.
Thanks for the vote of confidence Michael. I’d say that I must thin down my daily activities including time on the computer in order to make more time to play with them. It’s not enough if you have indoor cats and you are a working person. I think it is very hard to satisfy them what with being gone all day. I notice the Gigi has start to get very vocal with me when I leave. She doesn’t want me to go. Even when she is sleeping or resting and we aren’t doing anything together – as soon as I get up and put my coat on she jumps up at starts telling me not to go I think. It melts my heart. I hope that Gigi and I can get through this rough patch and she will start to feel better, more active and motivated. Add to that being able to go outside on a small enclosed balcony. It’s heartbreaking to see such a feisty cat not even bothered to chase a feather toy and with a sad look on her face. I have to learn to deal with it and not be affected into making things worse by being sad myself. It’s hard to feel responsible for someones unhappiness like that. Indoor cats is a whole new thing to me.
I agree, Michael. I have a problem with sugar myself. I eat too much, fell sluggish, swear off candy forever, but in a couple hours I’m craving it again. The guy who made that movie “Supersize Me” about the dangers of fast food had a similar experience. Monty doesn’t get any dry food at all anymore. If I’m going to be gone more than eight hours I have my sister give him a snack before she leaves for work and supper when she gets home. I used to put dry food in a timer, but I decided not to give it at all anymore. He barfs it a lot anyway. Much less barfing without dry food in his diet.
I think the way you feel is similar to the way some domestic cats feel after eating too many carbohydrates. Thanks for the comment. I do believe this might be a hidden problem with modern day domestic cats. Getting fatter on dry cat food and eating too much. Dry cat food is very unnatural, isn’t it? It was invented for people not cats. It is easy to store and serve up. It should really be banned.
michael,your reply was very well said and to the point.kevin r.
Thanks Kevin. Hope you and yours are well.
Jeremy Kyle brings people together on stage who live highly dysfunctional lives on benefits (welfare) etc.. Often the mother of a child does not know who the father is and they do a DNA test and there are all kinds of rows over it. They are nearly always overweight despite being supposedly poor. You can look him up on Google.
I see a parallel between these people and under-stimulated domestic cats 😉 excluding all the sh*t humans get up to.
I have always wondered what it would be like without television. These days I can hardly watch it – so boring. I watch the news. That is about it. I wonder too whether we should read the news. I enjoy it but is is good for us?
I remember meeting an Australian during my tour of Sri Lanka in 2011 while at Nuwara Eliya station waiting for the train from Nuwara Eliya to Ella, the beautiful hill-train journey.Seeimng the plight of the average Sri Lankan he remarked that he was lucky to be born an Australian since poverty as seen in Sri Lanka or India was non-existent in Australia.He told me that unless a person was a total wastrel on “Benefit money” , the “Dole Pension” is sufficient for a wealthy living compared to “Third World and Developing World” country’s. In India i don’t receive a single rupee from the Government in benefits and the same applies to all Indians.I am proud to say that my pets live on my personal income and not from Government benefits and hence they are in trim condition.as for me, i am doing a daily “swimming Marathon” to stay economically afloat in the locality that i live, a plush locality of Mumbai.I think that this “Survival factor” makes us competitive.One thing i admire about the west and the developed world, the fact that poverty as seen in India and other developing country’s is totally eradicated, irrespective of benefits and its exploitation by a few unwilling to work for a living.I know, if my losses exceed my yearly income then i am in “Poverty Street” and the same applies to my cats .I took up writing and travelling as a hobby and its definitely not my income, just a passion to enliven my brain and keep me active.Strangely and unwittingly i have indirectly become a Internet google search celibrity ! .