Lagom is a Swedish word meaning enough. In the United States enough is often interpreted as sufficient, but something less than ideal. Enough connotes that one has a required minimum but could have more. A person with just enough falls short. Lagom is a positive spin on enough. Enough, in the context of lagom, is an appropriate amount, a fulfilling amount, the correct amount. Lagom is not too much and not too little—just right.
Let’s consider eating. There is an amount of eating at a meal that is just right. Eat too little and you are still hungry. Eat too much and you have abdominal pain. If you sustain the pattern of not eating enough, you will suffer from malnutrition. Likewise, if you consistently eat too much, you will suffer from obesity and related maladies. In the United States, we struggle more with eating too much than we do with not eating enough.
Forty percent of American adults are obese. Twenty percent of American children are obese. Medical professionals link obesity to type 2 diabetes, hyperlipidemia, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Obesity accounts for eighteen percent of deaths among Americans ages forty to eighty-five, about the same as the number of deaths that are attributable to cigarette smoking. In strictly dollar and cents terms, obesity is expensive. Obese Americans spend approximately one and a half thousand dollars more per year on medical care than those of normal weight. Collectively, the annual medical cost of obesity in the United States tops one hundred fifty billion dollars.
Rather than continuing to perceive enough as wanting, our overeating in the United States indicates we would do well to reconsider enough within the concept of lagom. If we could train ourselves not to eat too much and not to eat too little–just the right amount–imagine the positive impact individually and collectively. With a dash of lagom at mealtime, we can curtail obesity.
Consider the extension of lagom beyond eating. How could you apply lagom to personal finances, to consumption, to relationships, to work, and to the pursuit of pleasure? What problems could you solve with lagom? How could you improve your life and the lives of others?
P. Gustav Mueller, author of The Present
Sources for the medical statistics in this post:
Rising Obesity in the United States Is a Public Health Crisis, David Blumenthal, M.D. and Shanoor Seervai
Obesity Kills More Americans Than Previously Thought, One in Five Americans, Black and White, Die from Obesity, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health
Annual Medical Spending Attributable To Obesity: Payer-And Service-Specific Estimates
Eric A. Finkelstein, Justin G. Trogdon, Joel W. Cohen, and William Dietz
Childhood Obesity Facts Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Adult Obesity Facts Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Also of interest:
Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living, by Linnea Dunne (I have not read this book, but it looks like a good source to learn more about lagom).