For long corpulence has been blamed on too much of eating and too little of exercise. Caloric intake is much more than what could be burnt off by the body. Modern easy-going city lifestyle,lack of physical effort and sports and fat-rich junk food are blamed. Accordingly most of the efforts to reduce obesity have concentrated on addressing the above issues. Eating healthy and staying fit are modern day mantras.
But looks like the obesity researchers are not buying this argument. Insisting that "something" else must have changed in our environment to necessitate such changes, 20 "obesity experts" have come out with 10 most plausible explanations (International Journal of Obesity, DOI: 10.1038/sj.ijo.0803326) for this epidemic. (Obesity has indeed achieved epidemic status in many parts of the world)
Some of the reasons suggested by the experts are:
1. Lack of Sleep.
2. Climate control.
3. Less smoking ( Smoking reduces appetite ! ).
4. Pre natal effects.
5. Heavier people have more children.
6. Demographics ( Some people are fatter than others! )
7. Increased use of drugs.
8. Pollution (looks like you can blame it for everything!).
9. Older parents ( later you conceive, fatter the progeny).
and finally ....
10. Fat people marry fat :)
Hope that now it does not come as a surprise that many of us are fat!
May be it is time researchers divert their attention on people who are skinny and remain so all their life inspite of religiously trying to put on some fat ;-)
ReplyDeleteThat would be a much better topic for research than the oft-researched 'obesity' ,'why are we fat' or 'how to lose weight'.