8 Reasons Our Waistlines Are Expanding

[Harvey Specter]

If obesity is a disease, like cancer or heart disease, as researchers stress, it is time to stop blaming lack of willpower for the extra poundage and ask - non-judgmentally - why are we so fat? From better hygiene to foods that mimic drugs, the answers may shake up your diet.

8. The Government

In 1998, 29 million people suddenly became overweight without gaining an ounce. That summer, the U.S. government announced new guidelines lowering the threshold of what classifies a person as overweight. Previously, if your body mass index (BMI) was less than 28 for men, or 27 for women, you were considered "normal." Now only BMIs of 25 or below are considered healthy. (BMI is a ratio of weight to height, and is considered an indicator of how much body fat a person has.)

7. Better Hygiene

While our food-stuffed, exercise-starved, modern lifestyles are still the most popular scapegoats, in the future, we might also blame frequent hand-washing and cleaner water.

In experiments done on mice, researchers have found that certain intestinal bacteria can help a body suck more calories out of the same amount of food and even increase a person's appetite. It is possible these bacteria gained prominence as we wiped out competing bacteria with antibiotics and better hygiene practices, said senior researcher Andrew Gewirtz at the Emory University School of Medicine in Georgia.

The finding does not suggest that obesity is an infectious disease - it is nearly impossible to change your intestinal helpers after the first few years, or even days, of life - so don't expect an obesity antibiotic anytime soon.

6. Your Parents

Not everyone has succumbed to environmental changes: Skinny people do still exist. These people have won "the throw of the genetic dice," said Susan Carnell, an obesity researcher at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York.

Genes likely control how easily one feels satiated, researchers are finding. People who lack the genes for a voracious appetite often don't understand how hard it is for someone who isn't so genetically lucky, Carnell said.

5. Especially Mom

New research has shown that an unborn child may receive "epigenetic" messages in the womb about how to regulate his or her weight. Epigenetics is the idea that even if genes themselves aren't altered, how they function can change.

Researchers at the Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center in Little Rock transferred the newborns of normal-weight and obese rat mothers, or "dams," to the care of svelte females. Even with nearly identical genes and upbringing, only the babies from the wombs of the rotund became plump themselves.

"This occurred despite the fact that the offspring of overweight dams ate the same amount of high-fat food as the offspring of lean dams," said study researcher Kartik Shankar in a press statement.

4. Friends

People judge their own weight based on that of others and, well, in the land of the obese, the overweight feel superior. Research has shown that if your friends are fat, you are more likely to join the big booty camp yourself - even if your obese pals live far away. An underlying reason might be a resetting of what you consider normal, so a scale reading above a certain point could have sent you into tears one day and barely gotten notice the next. Such findings suggest that obesity has cultural and psychological causes as well as physiological ones.

3. Cars, Chairs and Sofas

We don't move our bodies nearly as much as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, a fact that has likely contributed to our collective weight gain. Exercise is great for maintaining weight and regulating appetite, Carnell said.

But if you want to lose a bulge, or ten, and "you are not reducing calories, just exercising, it will take a very long time to lose a single pound," said Caroline Apovian, an obesity researcher at the Boston University School of Medicine.

2. The Food Fun House

"If McDonald's didn't exist, we'd all be a lot thinner," Carnell said, referring to fast foods in general.

Highly palatable foods, such as those available from fast food chains, are "layered and loaded with fat, sugar and salt," all of which, instead of satiating us, actually prompt us to continue eating, said Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner and author of "The End of Overeating" (Rodale Books, 2009). Such foods cause particular excitement in areas of the brain associated with emotion and reward - much like alcohol, sex and drugs.

With sugar, salt and fat on every street corner, Kessler said, "we are living in a food carnival." And like an over-stimulated preschooler glazing over with fatigue and irritability, our bodies are responding to the food fun house by developing insulin resistance, diabetes and systemic inflammation, which is a body-wide immune response that has been linked with health issues, including heart disease and cancer.

1. The National Eating Disorder

While genes and environment are responsible for two-thirds of the differences in people's BMIs, the remaining third is psychological. Not only can our jam-packed lifestyles drive us to self-medicate with food, stress and lack of sleep may take an unfriendly toll on metabolism.

The U.S. food culture, or lack thereof, is also to blame, Kessler said. Unlike other developed countries, which have been slow to match our obesity rates, we put limited value on the pleasures and rituals of dining - lunch is eaten at our desks, breakfast on the commute.

Such disrespect for food likely exacerbates weight problems by leaving us perpetually unsatisfied. Tellingly, eating fast has been linked to being overweight while regular family meals are associated with a decreased risk of obesity.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/...esareexpanding

.

[EmperorIS]

i got fatter ever since i got my N

[sonick]

Starting work full time at a desk job in general has killed my metabolism. You never realize how many calories you burn going to school, especially if you bus. Going from that to driving to work and sitting at a desk daily is such a huge difference.

[Mancini]

Originally Posted by sonick

Starting work full time at a desk job in general has killed my metabolism. You never realize how many calories you burn going to school, especially if you bus. Going from that to driving to work and sitting at a desk daily is such a huge difference.

This is true. I've been off of work for a while and lost most of my bodyfat again - just by virtue of not sitting in a chair all day.

[Mugen EvOlutioN]

or stop playing sport. i gained 35pounds ish after high school. but again i was hella skinny back than. now im in my mid 20s, gotta start watch out what i eat. no more 5 meals a day

[noventa]

that is such bullshit. We are fat motherfuckers because we consume more resources then what we require.

[hal0g0dv2]

everyone complains there fucking fat fucks, yet they still eat really bad food, i see it all the time, tons of girls , omg im so fat yet im eating mc donalds, are drinking those surgery ass drinks from starbucks, grow the fuck up

[Mugen EvOlutioN]

lol sometimes its hard to resist the temptation of junk food you know


i used to drink shit load of pop, hell i even store a 24 case in the back of my trunk just so i dont die of thirst. Pepsi was my only source of water, thx god i actually drink water or tea now.

[unit]

what a load of shit.

[johny]

if people hunted their own meat and grew their own vegis nobody would be fat. instead everyone eats crap full of chemicals you can't even pronouce.

[!Yaminashi]

Originally Posted by halogodv2

everyone complains there fucking fat fucks, yet they still eat really bad food, i see it all the time, tons of girls , omg im so fat yet im eating mc donalds, are drinking those surgery ass drinks from starbucks, grow the fuck up

lol why did you fail yourself? Its true!
Girls always complain about their weight yet do nothing to change it.

[RacePace]

Originally Posted by Mugen EvOlutioN

lol sometimes its hard to resist the temptation of junk food you know


i used to drink shit load of pop, hell i even store a 24 case in the back of my trunk just so i dont die of thirst. Pepsi was my only source of water, thx god i actually drink water or tea now.

That's called being weak. This list is just a bunch of excuses.

[Liquid_o2]

Originally Posted by sonick

Starting work full time at a desk job in general has killed my metabolism. You never realize how many calories you burn going to school, especially if you bus. Going from that to driving to work and sitting at a desk daily is such a huge difference.

Yup. I've been working a desk job for two years, and it is really tough sitting in a chair for 8 hours a day. I try and take a walk everyday for at least 15 minutes after lunch to stretch my legs.

Thank god my spring soccer league is starting up this April.

[unit]

one big reason is lack of education or ignorance.
they should teach nutrition in school (along with finance).

now that would be teaching kids how to survive in life.

it is however your own responsibility to take care of your own body and to seek out information about how to do so. given that you care about your wellbeing.

[sonick]

Originally Posted by unit

one big reason is lack of education or ignorance.
they should teach nutrition in school (along with finance).

now that would be teaching kids how to survive in life.

it is however your own responsibility to take care of your own body and to seek out information about how to do so. given that you care about your wellbeing.

+1. Teach kids how to actually COOK real food and about nutrition in general.

[unit]

you should see what we learned to make in home economics class in gr. 8.
they taught the food groups and food pyramid (bullshit), and taught us how to make pizza, muffins, cakes, and other crap.

i just googled food pyramid and this was the first pic that came up.
a school board website that teaches kids to eat 6-11 servings of grains "liberally"

[hk20000]

whatever you eat, if you eat a lot of it, you will get fat.

It's that simple.

[sonick]

Originally Posted by hk20000

whatever you eat, if you eat a lot of it, you will get fat.

It's that simple.

Look up negative calorie foods.

[StealthFighter]

Originally Posted by Coach Hines

lol why did you fail yourself? Its true!
Girls always complain about their weight yet do nothing to change it.

haha, it's called "fishing for compliments."

[twitchyzero]

People that sit on their ass for 8 hours daily for work still doesn't have that much excuse for gaining lots of weight

lets assume you sleep 8 hours, work is 10 hours including breaks and commute time....exclude another 1 for shower and dinner..you still have 5 hours each day to spare 30 minuites doing physical activity.

if your working 10+ hours daily 7 days a week then yes it starts becoming challenging.

[RRxtar]

i work 8-10 hour days of hard physical labor 5-6 days a week and STILL goto the gym 4-5 times a week AND play a sport on my off day. and I own my own company so most of my off time is spent thinking about work.

anyone who sits at a desk for 8 hours a day and says they are too tired to exersize is full of shit.

you have to WANT to be healthy.

[TruboChrager]

Originally Posted by EmperorIS

i got fatter ever since i got my N

Then get out of your car and take the bus.

[MR_BIGGS]

I think it's just like smoking. You know eating junk food is not good for you, but you don't see the long term affects it has on your health in the present or near future. Just like when you exercise, you may not see the benefits right away, but if you stick to a fitness program those results will come.

[q0192837465]

sigh, i'm getting fat too. It suck when u havent wore a pair of pants for a while & now when u try them on, they don't fit anymore.

[SkinnyPupp]

Originally Posted by unit

you should see what we learned to make in home economics class in gr. 8.
they taught the food groups and food pyramid (bullshit), and taught us how to make pizza, muffins, cakes, and other crap.

i just googled food pyramid and this was the first pic that came up.
a school board website that teaches kids to eat 6-11 servings of grains "liberally"

Exactly. If they taught their version of "nutrition" in school, people would be fatter than ever!