Ramadan 2013: Fasting for the body, food for the soul

Ramadan in Britain during the early eighties, when I was growing up, was very different from what it is now. There was no awareness of the periodic fasting month in the Islamic calendar, any flexibility of working hours, and the lack of attachment to pray in the office and no calls to prayer on television.

For a period of one month every year, my family and I to do this duty annual Islamic surreptitiously, tip-toeing around for a meal before dawn for fear of waking the neighbors with the clatter of the kitchen, and are reluctant to talk about the practice for fear of censure or ridicule.

Four decades on, the month of Ramadan is characterized more explicitly in Britain. Some employers provide flexibility in time for those Muslims who, this week, will implement the fast day for 30 consecutive days that will involve about 19 hours of abstinence from all food and drink - from sunrise to sunset. Some companies are allowed for Muslims to start working days later, so they can catch up on sleep after waking up at 3:00 to eat, and to put an end to earlier shifts, so that it does not work when they are physically weakened.

Eid festival which marks the end of Ramadan is celebrated also increasingly in public places across the country, including Trafalgar Square in London. Channel 4 announced last week that it will broadcast one of the five "calls to prayer" during the period of fasting for a month. Channel was deliberately called an act of "provocation" that would, she hoped, and prejudices of the challenge to link Islam with extremism.

It's not just for the month of Ramadan, which received a public relations boost in recent times but fasting in itself. In the early days of fasting - in school and then in university - and often warned me by well-wishers of the danger that may be put under physical and stop eating and drinking for long hours can do me harm.

Now, fasting seems to have returned as the ancients saw - a way to give the body a rest, cleansing both physically and spiritually, and a way to sharpen our sense of collective restraint. Being revive these goals in the Western world torn apart by obesity, binge with its own culture, and obesity in childhood and her addiction to food.

Investigation Horizon Dr. Michael Mosley in 2012, and who has studied the effect of intermittent fasting, and who fasted two days of each week (living on 600 calories during fasting a day) and generated popular diet 05:02. Dr. Mosley presented medical evidence for - life span and improve the life benefits of fasting on the human body, although this is still controversial land in the scientific community and food.

Even the greatest claims came from American scientists last year who said that fasting for regular periods could help protect the brain from degenerative disease. The researchers found in the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore evidence that extremely low in calories for a day or two days a week can protect the brain from harmful effects more than Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.

Apart from the health benefits, there are ethical reasons for fasting, too, even for most atheistic us. Steven Paul, in his book, and you are not what you eat: fed up Gastroculture, argues convincingly against the recent explosion of "foodie culture" in Britain, who became the food and the Middle-bound case and wasteful self-indulgent hobby class.

And now worships celebrity chefs, he says, people send pictures of their meals on Facebook. "Western civilization eat the same stupid," Paul writes. "It has become literary and visual discourse of food in our culture inseparable from any reasonable concern for the feed or the environment."

It is naive to think that a few hours of abstinence would hurt the majority of the population is overweight in the West, although, of course, those with certain diseases such as heart disease or diabetes should avoid fasting for medical reasons (and exempt from the obligation of the month of Ramadan). After all, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world have access to only one meal at best, limited water, but they live on.

Mohammed Shafiq, a founder member of the Ramadhan Foundation, believes that the persistence of hunger and weakness of religious fasting might slow us down but also increases our sympathy for those who are physically impaired in some way. "During the month of Ramadan, and I understand how you feel when you were living in a place with no food or water."

In this sense, there are gains can be achieved for the spirit and extended their sympathy. Lent leads us to think of our bodies, dependencies and weaknesses of their own, as well as those of fellow men and women we have. This is not a bad thing.

Faith and Fasting: Ramadan rules

The fasting in Ramadan * to be one of the "five pillars of Islam," which is the basis of the Muslim faith. And excluded children or only those health conditions or children of fasting.

* Seen fasting to cleanse the soul from worldly impurities. They also serve to train formally Muslims to repel negative social vices through self-restraint and self-control.

* In the United Kingdom, and 2.7 million citizens are Muslim, according to the census of 2011, consisting of 4.8 per cent of the population. Between the Under-25s, and this figure is 10 per cent.

* Provide advice on how to deal with the month of Ramadan is available widely in schools, which are largely tolerant and flexible. Advised to Stoke-on-Trent City Council in 2010 that schools must rearrange exams and cancel swimming lessons, and sex education and social events at the school level during the month of Ramadan, as well as the provision of school meals and ready meals to take home to facilitate flexibility.