Hey guys julia here for DNews
Obesity seems to be on the rise.
Polls and studies like a 2014 Gallup-Healthways poll show that nearly a third of all Americans
are clinically obese.
But it’s not just the ends of the scale, most people are on average are 10 percent
heavier than the average person 30 years ago.
Seems everyone’s a little rounder in the middle.
So are we lazy?
Or are did previous generations screw us over?
Well recent research suggests we aren’t getting lazier.
It seems even if you eat the same amount of calories and exercising the same amount, your
BMI might be 2.3 points higher than Marty McFly according to a new study Obesity Research
and Practice.
So what’s going on?
Maybe It’s not just the food we eat or the amount of streaming binges we do.
Maybe it’s environmental too.
I mean, believe it or not there’s evidence that all animals are getting bigger.
And dogs just don’t marathon shows in one sitting.
Which is just crazy like why haven’t we talked about this before?
In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Researchers looked
at 20,000 animals from 8 different species.
They called these species “canaries in the coalmine”, animals that live near and around
us that could give us clues if things are heading south.
They found that several species like cats and dogs and rodents ARE getting bigger.
Which I know you’re probably thinking, like as our diets get more processed and less healthy,
so do theirs!
But the weight gain held true not just for wild rats living off our trash but even rats
in labs fed a specially controlled diet got chubbier.
Some researchers point the finger at “Obesogens” which a study published in the journal Environmental
Health Perspectives defines as “dietary, pharmaceutical, and industrial compounds that
may alter metabolic processes and predispose some people to gain weight”.
Basically the idea is that low background levels of certain chemicals can be linked
to an increase in weight.
What chemicals?
The study implicates several chemicals like DDE —a DDT breakdown product), the notorious
(BPA) used in plastics, and PFOA used as a protective coating on some fabrics like carpets.
Sometimes these chemicals find their way into an expecting mother from a water bottle, from
upholstery and disrupts the fetus’s development.
In several animal studies, the generation exposed to chemicals while in the womb were
fatter than their parents.
The most common theme of these chemicals, is that they’re known endocrine disrupters.
These types of chemicals are frequently linked to ill health effects like weight gain.
They can change the way adipose cells, or fat cells work.
Rather than triggering the body to make more of these fat cells, endocrine receptors can
make the cells hold more.
The cells get bigger.
But maybe there’s more than just what we’re exposed to in the environment.
Even routinely prescribed medication seem to have weight gain as side effect.
70% of Americans take some form of prescription drug.
And antidepressants are one of the most common, more than 10% of people are on them at one
point or another.
Unfortunately many are linked to a rise in weight.
Not because they change fat cells necessarily but because they increase appetite.
But that could be because loss of appetite is a symptom of depression.
So maybe these people lost weight because they were depressed and simply put their normal
weight back on.
Other studies like one published in PLOS one show a strong link between weight gain and
almost all antipsychotic medication.
And other common medications like anti seizure meds, and ironically medications for blood
pressure and diabetes can lead to some people putting on the pounds.
But it’s hard to tell what’s really causing the link between gaining weight and these
drugs.
But authors of the study published in the journal Obesity Research & Clinical Practice
think besides all that I’ve mentioned, our microbiomes might be to blame too.
Maybe the hormones and antibiotics in our food might be changing the gut bacteria that
helps us digest food, potentially leading to more weight gain.
But it’s kind of hard to take a sample of someone’s microbiome from 30 years ago to
compare it to the microbiomes of today, so it’s hard to draw hard conclusions here.
But all this taken together makes a strong case that there’s more to the story than
just diet and exercise.
Some people think health food could be to blame.
Matt Lieberman finds out the answer in this episode, right here.
So what do you think?
What if diet and exercise can’t stop the rise in obesity?
Leave your thoughts down in the comments below..