Losing Weight Elephant Style

by being overweight they considerably reduce their life span

It is not just humans who put on weight but animals who overeat and who don’t get enough exercise can also become obese. At the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park in America a group of seven elephants had become worryingly overweight which prompted their keepers to get them slim and trim. The amount of weight they needed to lose was huge but the plan has been very successful with over 5,000kg of fat being lost since the weight loss initiative started in the year 2000.

In fact Senior Elephant Keeper Mr. Ron Ringer said that very little has been done to modify their diet but instead they had been made to exercise more. This was done by making the food less accessible to the elephants so that they had to work harder to get to it. The elephants have also been trained to jog gently around their pen to burn off even more calories. The keepers have realised that by making the food more difficult to get they have also stimulated the elephants mentally which is good for their health. One of the motivations for getting the elephant to lose weight was because the keepers realised that they would live for much longer than normal if they were to get proper exercise. 

In the same way individuals should also make food less accessible to themselves if they want to control their weight. By placing tasty snacks in the easy reach of your workplace and home makes it much more tempting to eat all the time.  If you were to copy the ideas of the keepers of these elephants you could also lose weight by keeping food out of your line of sight.

People should remember that by being overweight they considerably reduce their life span and that getting exercise and eating healthily is the way forward for longevity. This applies to all animals and household pets.