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Topic summary contributed by volunteer(s): Linda
The Mayo Clinic defines obesity, a common U.S. condition, as having an excessive amount of body fat. The U.S. National Institute of Health defines obesity as a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or more. One in three American adults is obese, seven times the rate of China and eight times more than Japan. If the current trend continues, virtually 100% of Americans will be obese by the end of the century.
The annual cost attributable to obesity among full-time U.S. employees is estimated at $70 billion. Obesity is associated with serious health problems including heart disease, diabetes, heart attack, prostate enlargement, reduced female fertilization rates, gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD), non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and cancer. Obesity can both stress a person’s joints and degrade a person’s cartilage. A form of low-grade systemic inflammation called metaflammation is associated with obesity.
The U.S. obesity epidemic extends to children. Only 1 in 1000 American children eats a healthy diet, a likely cause of the childhood obesity epidemic and the dramatic rise in childhood diabetes. The availability of large portions of junk food appears to be linked to this obesity trend. Babies who are fed milk formula have a higher obesity rate than babies who are breastfed.
The food industry has helped promulgate the erroneous message that inactivity, rather than consumption of manufactured, calorie-rich, nutrient-poor foods, is the prime cause of obesity. Food and beverage intake along with calorie overconsumption are actually more important than physical activity in weight maintenance and loss. Intake of chicken meat, which has over ten times the calories and fat of chickens a hundred years ago, may contribute to obesity risk. Consumption of milk, refined grains, meat, and fish contaminated with industrial pollutants may also raise obesity risk. Dairy, meat, eggs, and junk foods all raise the activity of the TOR enzyme, which appears to be linked to obesity risk. Industrial pollutants that may build up in our body fat from diet may help explain the link between obesity and diabetes. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals in foods and increased uric acid levels from meat and sugar intake may increase obesity risk. Not getting a good night’s sleep is another potential risk factor. A review of common slimming supplements showed that they were not effective for weight loss.
A plant-based diet can help prevent and treat obesity and other serious health conditions. Plant-based diets appear to protect against metabolic syndrome and may foster the kinds of gut bacteria linked to reduced obesity risk. Breastfeeding infants may help protect them against subsequent obesity for over 30 years. Green tea, beans, whole grains, and fiber from various sources may also help lower obesity risk. Fiber-consuming bacteria in the gut create the compounds propionate and butyrate, which appear to have an anti-obesity effect. Research has associated nut and dried fruit intake with lower obesity risk.
Image Credit: Pixabay. This image has been modified.
Implausible explanations for the obesity epidemic, such as sedentary lifestyles or lack of self-discipline, serve the needs of the manufacturers and marketers more than the public’s health and the interest in truth.
Like the tobacco industry adding extra nicotine, the food industry employs taste engineers to accomplish a similar goal: maximize the irresistibility of their products.
How the power of the “eat more” food environment can overcome our conscious controls.
We all like to think we make important life decisions like what to eat consciously and rationally, but if that were the case we wouldn’t be in the midst of an obesity epidemic.
The unprecedented rise in the power, scope, and sophistication of food marketing starting around 1980 aligns well with the blastoff slope of the obesity epidemic.
Why are U.S. taxpayers giving billions to support the likes of the sugar and livestock industries?
The rise in the U.S. calorie supply responsible for the obesity epidemic wasn’t just about more food but a different kind of food.
We have an uncanny ability to pick out the subtle distinctions in calorie density of foods, but only within the natural range.
Rather than being some kind of disorder or failure of willpower, weight gain is largely a normal response, by normal people, to an abnormal situation.
The big fat “fat gene” accounts for less than 1% of the differences in size between people.
The common explanations for the cause of the obesity epidemic put forward by the food industry and policymakers, such as inactivity or a lack of willpower, are not only wrong, but actively harmful fallacies.
How to treat the cause by preventing the emergence of pandemic viruses in the first place (a video I recorded more than a decade ago when I was Public Health Director at the HSUS in Washington DC).
