The Paradox That Saved Me From Chess
At thirteen, between tournaments and game preparations, I logged into a Wageningen University seminar to research why a country can be hungry and obese at the same time. I expected to write about the Philippines. I ended up writing about myself.
At thirteen, I logged into a Wageningen University seminar from a hotel room between chess tournaments. I was a Borlaug Scholar at the inaugural World Food Prize – Wageningen Youth Institute, researching the food crisis in the Philippines — the country I am from on my mother’s side.
I went in expecting to write about hunger somewhere else. I came out looking down at my own body.
Hunger and Obesity Are Not Opposites
They are not opposites. They are two failures of the same modern food system, coexisting in the Philippines, the United States, the same neighborhoods, sometimes the same kitchens.
The technical name is the triple burden of malnutrition. The cheap calorie fills the stomach but starves the cell. A body can be technically overweight and still missing iron, vitamin A, zinc. Rational behavior inside an irrational system.
I Was Researching the Philippines. I Was Describing Myself.
I was a thirteen-year-old competitive chess player. Tournaments meant six to nine hours at a board over a weekend. Training meant another three to five hours a day in front of a screen. I was sitting for most of every day I was awake.
I was getting heavier. Visibly to me. And the thing that struck me was that I was eating well. My mother cooked — vegetables, protein, real meals. I had everything the Filipino kids in my data did not. I was still gaining weight, because the sport I had chosen had me sitting still for ten hours a day.
If I was getting heavier eating well, what was happening to the chess kid eating instant noodles between rounds because that’s what he could afford? What chance did he have?
That is the question that broke the research wide open. Tournament food is famously bad. Chess hours are long. The lifestyle is sedentary by definition. The paradox I was studying was not happening only to them — it was happening to us.
I started swimming. Started lifting. Started reading nutrition science the way I had been reading opening theory. Chess did not stop — I am still a FIDE-rated player. But I stopped being only a chess player.
Medicine came later — 2025, when I earned my SIFA fitness instructor certification and started working with real bodies under real load. That was when the paradox connected to medicine. But the saving started in 2023. With a research paper about a country I am from. That ended up being about me.
An Unfinished Move
Since the Wageningen research, the only person it has actually helped is me. Swimming. Open water championships. The SIFA certification. A medical track, eventually.
None of that is what a Borlaug Scholar is supposed to do. Scholars are supposed to do something for the kids in the data. On that, I have done nothing — no follow-up project, no campaign, no public writing until this one. I have been writing a book (The Grandmaster I Never Became) and preparing for medicine. The personal work happened. The cause-work did not.
That is not the cause abandoned. That is the cause parked. Different thing.
A Continuation, Not a Relaunch
Big plans tend to be the enemy of finished work. So this is small on purpose. The point is that it actually moves.
- Publish the original Wageningen research The 2023 paper, made public with a 2026 update note. If it is worth being a Borlaug Scholar for, it is worth being readable.
- Quarterly notes on the paradox Four articles a year — Philippine policy, U.S. food assistance, ultra-processed food regulation. A Borlaug Scholar’s notebook in public.
- A reading list and resource page One page for anyone who wants the honest version of this topic — books, papers, reports, people doing the real work.
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Carry the cause through three domains I already run
The Borlaug paradox is a sport, fitness, and public-awareness problem before it is a medical one. The three places I already have a platform are the three places I can move the needle now, not in a future career.
- Fitness & Coaching Use the EQF Level 4 credential and paralympic-coaching foundation to run accessible youth training with food literacy built in. The certification was the door. Using it is the work.
- Chess Platform · The Opening Move The chess hall is the broken food environment described above. The audience that needs this most is the one I am already standing in. Change what gets eaten at the board.
- Open Water · Deep Water Open water proved my body could be rebuilt. Whether every kid gets that chance is the next question. Advocate for community swimming as public health infrastructure, not luxury sport.
Calculate the problem honestly. Commit to the next move fully. Continue.
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