Obesity is a “global epidemic,” according to the World Health Organization. Two thirds of American adults and one third of school-age children are either overweight or obese (defined as extremely overweight). These proportions have been rising steeply, report the latest surveys. From 1960 to 2002 the population of overweight and obese adults increased by roughly 50 percent, and the corresponding increase for children was 300 percent. Compounding the problem, obesity rates in other countries are rapidly approaching those in the U.S.
What is causing this pandemic, and what can we do about it? Researchers have provided some tentative answers that fly in the face of commonly held beliefs. They suggest that the increase in obesity may be a result of environmental changes that tempt us into unhealthy habits and tend to overwhelm our psychological defenses against consuming too much and succumbing to fattening fare. In fact, environmental cues can exacerbate any innate tendency to use food as a balm for jittery nerves or sadness. Thus, many health experts advocate legislation—for instance, a tax on junk food—that promotes healthy eating. Others are trying to help individuals change their immediate eating milieu in ways that discourage overeating.
Obesity Myths
Many people, including health care professionals, believe that obesity can be attributed simply to a lack of self-control or willpower. It is true that obese people are often unable to adequately control their eating. But lack of self-control is merely a description, not an explanation. What remains to be explained is why they cannot exercise self-control.
Nevertheless, doctors routinely tell their obese patients to restrict what they eat. Diet books, articles in health magazines and on Web sites, and commercial weight-loss programs also encourage people to eat less and exercise more. Unfortunately, approaches based on self-control do not seem to work very well. As sales of weight-loss books have climbed recently—from 3.6 million copies in 2005 to 4.8 million in 2007—so has obesity. Further, two thirds of those who slim down in weight-loss programs regain their weight within a year, and almost all have put back the pounds within five years.
Other explanations of the increase in obesity are based on genes and psychological factors. It is true that many people are predisposed to gain weight because of their genetic makeup. But genetic factors cannot account for the sharp increase in the prevalence of obesity in society. The genes within a population relevant to weight do not change appreciably in 50 years. Some psychological factors may also play a role in obesity, including impulsivity, anxiety and a tendency among some people to eat during negative emotional states. But here, too, there is no reason to believe that these characteristics have become more prevalent in recent decades. Therefore, genetic and psychological factors cannot account for the rise in obesity.
Toxic Environment
Results of a large number of studies support the conclusion that environmental cues exert a powerful influence on our eating behaviors. And unlike biological factors, our nutritional environment has changed radically in the past 50 years. In various publications, Yale University psychologist Kelly D. Brownell has used the term “toxic environment” to refer to this new dietary atmosphere, which is characterized by pervasive exposure to food that is energy-dense, heavily marketed, cheap and widely accessible, accompanied by a lack of physical activity.
A 1995 report by the Institute of Medicine set the stage for future work when it concluded that the root of the obesity problem “must lie in the powerful social and cultural forces that promote an energy-rich diet and a sedentary lifestyle.” More recent studies have borne out this statement. These forces, Brownell postulates, include the explosion of fast food outlets, increasingly large restaurant portion sizes, “all you can eat” buffets, the proliferation of mini markets that sell high-calorie snacks and drinks, contracts between schools and fast food and soft drink companies to sell their products in school cafeterias, and widespread powerful food advertising.
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Add Commentsir, i am Muslim and Pakistani,i want to increase my body weight i am married and having one child.i am 37 years old and my body weight is 52 KG.i never use any medicine to increase my body weight please suggest some medicine and also diet ,so that i can increase my body weight
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRead Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" ...it isn't our environment, unless you count "the western diet" an environment. Processed food diets of all types lead to obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Unless you're eating mostly food your great grandmother would recognize as "food" (forget chips, tv dinners, and taco bell), you can count on health problems, simple as that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems to me that people become overweight by swallowing too much aggression - along with a lot of pizza.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am with Shakespeare on this issue "First I would kill all the lawyers". However, I would add nutritionists and physical trainers to the list.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI come from a family of fit naturally sized people and so does my wife. Having a slight tendency to hyperthyroidism in the family helps keep the weight down admittedly. However the 7 bullet points at the end of the article seem to be the most important part. I live by some attentional points that are contrary to most of what is taught for weight control.
Eat less; do more is the golden rule. In real life that means;
* Don't eat breakfast; it only makes you starving by noon.
* If you need a snack have a big one to get rid of the hunger pangs for several hours.
* Talk, argue, debate during a meal. You will enjoy yourself and your companions more. It forces you to chew more and lets the food settle in your stomach allowing a feeling of fullness to develop while your are in the midst of verbal forays.
* Waste food. You have already paid for it. It makes no difference to your pocketbook whether the food goes into the trash or your stomach.
* Don't feel guilty. Eating your food won't help the starving kids in Africa.
* Don't exercise. It's boring, strenuous and can't be sustained. Instead live on impulse. If you forgot something upstairs, go get it. Don't make a planned trip out of it; go up and down three different times if you have to because you keep forgetting to do something.
* Park at the back of the parking lot; not to force a walk but because it saves on car door dings and is easier to find the car.
* Walk to the corner store. Walking is the easiest most natural activity. And besides, distances progressively shorten each time you walk a route.
Sometimes you can even sneak in a treat without anybody else in the family knowing.
* Ignore advice about what is a proper diet. It will probably change tomorrow.
* Pay particular attention to the three major food groups; sugar, salt and fat. Put them up front on your food where you can enjoy them; don't hide them inside the preparation of the meal.
* Listen to your body. It tells you what and when you need something -- even treats.
Be natural; enjoy life.
A-HAHA ok Bill Case.... that is the funniest thing I have ever read and I am not entirely sure that was your intention.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am thin and so is most of my family. We eat what we want and for the most part dont think about it. We are all pretty active, I work out everyday, I LOVE running with my fiance (find something you like to do and dont do something just because you feel you have to).
I am telling you people think way to much about food ALL DAY LONG. weather its what they shouldnt be eating or what they should be eating.....its kinda gross to me. I hear people ALL day long talking about what they are having at dinner (mean while its 10AM), talk about what new diet they are on, talk about how they are going to "try" and start a work out routine. They ask me my advise on what I do. I have no problem advising people (even though I am not a doctor) but as soon as I mention working out I get rolled eyes or them saying "ugh I dont have time for that".
I think a lot of people (in my non-expert) opinion are not happy with what they are doing, whats going on in their lives or something else. I dont think that is an excuse to eat but just what people tell me and what I see. I think if more people focused on the positive and stop seeing EVERYTHING as a downer it would fall into place.
I agree with you.....enjoy life......you never know when it (or someone important to you) will be taken away.
PS....I never eat breakfast. I will be starving in 2 hours if I do that.
Hi Ivanbobby ... Well, the words were certainly chosen with a tongue firmly planted in one cheek. On the other hand, I do hope I got another 'healthful' perspective into the discussion with some titbits, or crumbs of truth. I could have said the same things with a much more sour attitude.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA correction:
* Don't feel guilty. Not eating all your food won't hurt the starving kids in Africa.
FOOD IS THE MAJOR PREVENTABLE CAUSE OF EARLY DEATH
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(not cigarettes) at least in the USA.
Do not eat breakfast - early man, after waking up, had to go and look for food before eating it.
Get rid of your refrigerator, consequence = have to throw away uneaten, prepared food and also no (unnatural) dairy products and frozen food - consequence = walk to the shop more often.
Do not have quick, over appealing food at home. A person should build up enough hunger so that he will have sufficient incentive to get up and laboriously prepare (cook) food before eating it. This type of food is generally healthy. (vegetables, - and fruit that needs preparation, peeling.
More natural sex - not modern hidden inhibited "moral" sex.
I think all sweet foods in the US have excessive sugar compared to other countries and that is one of the main causes of obesity, not to mention higher diabetes rates.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFDA must come up w/ a measure of sugar (ratio) in a food and must force it to be labeled in all foods.
Also it must enforce a lower limit than the current.
Epidemic obesity causation is multifactorial. But if only one factor could be identified, it would be the recently adopted practice of imbibing sugar containing beverages for routine hydration. This practice is insane, has no evolutionary antecedent among primates (humming birds are NOT our close relatives), and amounts to a toxic habit like tobacco abuse. The AVERAGE American teenager derives around 14% of his calories from soft drinks. In addition to the feed-forward effects of sugar-load driven insulin production on appetite, studies have shown that liquid calories are underestimated by satiety mechanisms.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow as to the ERRONEOUS assertion in the article that genetic change within the population of developed nations can not explain even part of the obesity epidemic, consider this: Epigenetic (DNA methylation) effects may be vertically transmitted, AND it has been shown that mothers experiencing variously food plenty or food deprivation pass a different suite of active genes to their offspring. That's right, fat moms may pass activated quick weight gain genes to little (soon to be big) Johnny, and thin moms may pass a genetic suite adapted to parsimonious resource use. Patterns of DNA methylation once made are life long.
no one ever points out that it is cheaper to eat badly. If the foods that are better for you were less expensive, then that is what we would be eating. Instead it is easier and cheaper to eat fast food, packaged and processed foods. So taxing junk food might actually work, that would make those items more expensive than foods that are better for you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFructose is part of the reason why people are fat. From high-fructose corn syrup, from sucrose, from fruit juices etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy diet is very low-fat AND low in fructose (from sucrose and free fructose). I get most of my calories from starches. It doesn't make me want to overeat at all. It's about the most filling diet for the calories that you can have.
Obesity. Storing consumed calories instead of burning them. That's the simple part. The complexity is a sum of the variabilities in food intake, food content, absorption efficiency (inc. gut flora), addictive mindset/genes (?), energy spent, and of course, social and advertising influences. These things combined (reduced to nature AND nurture) make it difficult to subscribe a diet/lifestyle that is generalizable. Dieting methods for weight-loss that for some people doesn't for everybody and may require a totally different strategy than simple maintanence, particularly among those who are "(epi)genetically predisposed." As a thin person myself, I would have to disagree with the much of the advice given by a few who admit they are thin, as a result of either genetics/lifestyle. Part of the problem with dealing with obesity is the long and contradicting lists of Dos and Don'ts. Eat breakfast. Don't eat breakfast. Eat low fat. Eat high fat, higher the unsaturated the better. Eat fat-free snack packs. Eat fresh food only. Sleep less. Sleep more. Snack more. Snack less. Use sugar substitutes. Don't use sugar substitutes. I'll stop now. I think the most sound advice against which there is no argument is to Listen To Your Body. If you can't hear what your body is saying, exercise will get it talking. And we care so much about fat people brett, because thin people have problems too; and our economy thrives on helping each other mend our flaws. We also care because like it or not, fat people effect us and We don't deserve many of those consequences (ranging from health care costs to discomfort in a plane seat.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIts not so much about working out more and eating less, its about establishing a routine and eating at appropriate times.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBreakfast is the most important meal of the day, regardless if we are hungry two hours later, it gets our bodies ready to go, and of course you need to keep on fueling up.
On the matter of meals, no one has it more right than the europeans. Eat a large breakfast, a snack, then a medium size lunch, another brisque snack and then a relatively light dinner, to begin the fast over the night (remember breakfast= breaking your fast) your body has gone without any fuel now for several hours and needs that morning meal to function properly.
It can be as simple as porridge with berries and nuts, a breakfast with protiens and carbohydrates is best, your snacks should contain fruit/vegitables and if you like dairy, cheese! Dinner all depends on your energy levels, carbs, protiens and the portiion size.
The national health association, as well as the Canadian Food guide, both recommend a mere hour to half hour of vigouris excersise a day, which can be a walk, bike ride or even gardening for beginners, or dancing and swimming.
I have a family history of obesity, and with a mesomorphic body type, I have to be very concious of my diet and activity level or I can gain weight super fast without noticing it. Suddenly my jeans are too tigh... To manage my problem, I've begun going to school to become a yoga instructor and fitness trainer.
Educating yourself about health and wellness is much easier than most would think. Instead of watching mindless TV, pop in an educational video (they're out there) take up a night course or read a book. When you're done... go for a stroll.
If you arent getting enough from your diet, take a daily multivitamin.
And remember, always read the food labels! The less processed crap the better!
To "fb36"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy would FDA would do anything, they are too busy counting the money which they get to pass the dangerous, so called medicines.