8 Surprising Things That May Be Making Americans Fat
May 31, 2012 |
Photo Credit: Jenn Huls/ Shutterstock.com
A third of the U.S. population
is now overweight, making it just a matter of time before
normal-size people are actually in the minority. Americans have so
ballooned in size, government safety regulators worry that airline
seats and belts won't
restrain today's men who average 194 pounds and women who
average 165 pounds, in a crash.
Not everyone agrees that
obesity is always a
health problem. You can be overweight and still have normal
blood pressure, blood sugar, HDL cholesterol and other metabolic
markers if you exercise, say some, pointing to U.S. Surgeon General
Regina Benjamin, who hiked
the Grand Canyon in 2010 despite her extra poundage. But others say fitness and
exercise will not reverse the health effects of obesity. The British
medical journal The Lancet recently reported that rising
obesity in the U.K. will cause an
extra half a million cases of heart disease, 700,000 cases of
diabetes and 130,000 of cancer by 2030. And the overweight and obese
are 80 percent more likely to develop dementia writes
Kerry Trueman on AlterNet. And there are other obesity
"negatives." The obese are less likely to be employed, earn less
than people of normal weight and "have more days of absence from
work, a lower productivity on the job and a greater access to
disability benefits," reports the Paris-based policy group
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Obesity raises Medicare,
Medicaid and private insurance costs and affects national security,
writes David Gratzer on
KevinMD.com, "since thousands of recruits are turned away from
military service because of failed physicals and poor overall
health." It also shortens "the lifespan of millions of decent
Americans who deserve better," he writes. Yet eating too much and
exercising too little, considered the root of obesity, are not the
only probable culprits. Here are some other factors that are often
overlooked. 1. Depression and
Depression Drugs Classic depression is
characterized by a decrease in appetite, weight loss and general
despondency. But in 1994, "atypical depression" debuted, a subtype
of depression characterized by an increase in appetite and
weight gain (as well as
oversensitivity to rejection by others). Unfortunately, both
types of depression are often treated with popular antidepressants
like Prozac, Zoloft, Lexapro and Paxil and antipsychotics like
Seroquel, Zyprexa and Risperdal, all of which can pack on the
pounds. To keep the weight gain from
affecting Pharma sales, the pro-pill site,
WebMD, tells patients that keeping the pounds off is their
responsibility since only "healthy eating and exercise help
control your weight gain." But it also counsels if the pill weight
gain is "so strong that it simply can't be offset by any amount of
calorie restricting or even exercise," the psychoactive medication
"to help overcome your depression is far more important." To whom? 2. Artificial
Sweeteners Artificial sweeteners, found
in soft drinks, many diet foods and an astounding number of
children's cereals for unclear reasons, may do more harm than good.
While marketed and perceived as helping people avoid calories, they
can have two insidious side effects: because they are sweet they
encourage sugar craving and sugar dependence just like salty foods
train people to crave salt, says research in the
Yale
Journal of Biology and Medicine. And, because sweetness is "decoupled from caloric content," they fail to satisfy the sweets reward system and actually further fuel "food-seeking behavior," wrote the researchers. See: giving hungry dog rubber bone. One artificial sweetener, Splenda, also has molecular similarities to endocrine disrupter pesticides, say food safety advocates. 3. Antibiotics Noting that the average child
in the U.S. and other developed countries "has received 10–20
courses of antibiotics by the time he or she is 18 years old,"
microbiologist Martin Blaser published some disturbing suggestions
in the journal
Nature last year. By killing "good" bacteria with
important roles in the body, "Overuse of antibiotics could be
fuelling the dramatic increase in conditions such as obesity, type 1
diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies and asthma," he
reports. Yes, obesity. Mice given
low-dose antibiotics that mimic farm use and high-dose antibiotics
that mimic infection treatment in children exhibited preliminary
"changes in body fat and tissue composition," says Blaser. Mice
developed as much as a 40 percent increase in fat and a 300 percent
increase in fat when given a high-fat diet too, extrapolated
Alice Wessendorf on the research. Denmark researchers found
eerie parallels in
humans. Babies given antibiotics within six months of birth were
more likely to be overweight by age 7. 4. Endocrine
Disrupters Antibiotics are not the only
widely used substances that may be associated with a host of human
problems. Chemicals called endocrine disrupters, found in everything
from canned foods and microwave popcorn bags to cosmetics and
carpet-cleaning solutions, are linked to breast cancer, infertility,
low sperm counts, genital deformities, early puberty and diabetes in
humans and alarming mutations in wildlife. Many are aware of the
endocrine disrupter BPA (Bisphenol A)
banned in baby bottles and sippy cups in Washington state but
given a pass by the
FDA in March. But few realize that similar endocrine disrupters
are found in flame retardants like phthalates and PBDEs, thermal
receipts given out at stores and in "antibacterial" dish detergents
and toothpaste, like
Tricoslan found in Colgate's Total. Endocrine disrupters may
also be linked to obesity. Pregnant women with high levels of PFOA,
one disrupter, were three times as likely to have daughters who grow
up to be overweight,
reported the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof in May. 5. Start 'em Young
Marketing Bad eating is learned young
and unfortunately some of the worst messages come from TV, parents
and school. In a
study in the journal Pediatrics, 4- to 6-year-olds who
tasted identical graham crackers and gummy fruit snacks with and
without cartoon characters "significantly preferred the taste of
foods that had popular cartoon characters on the packaging." Researchers who studied
500,000 California middle- and high-school students found those
with schools near fast-food outlets were heavier. And another
study of kids 12 to 19 found not one child ate a diet
meeting all five of the American Heart Association’s criteria. Even
though almost a third of U.S. children and teens are overweight,
84 percent of parents believe their children are at a healthy
weight, say researchers, which compounds the problem. 6. Hooked on
Cookies…and Chips, Pizzas and Ice Cream For some overweight people,
overeating is an actual addiction. Like alcoholism, food addicts are
"preoccupied with their drug (food). Whether they are thinking about
their next meal, trying to suppress their cravings, planning their
diet, feeling guilty about their last binge [or] hoping to find the
strength to say no to that dessert or second helping," writes Arya
M. Sharma on
KevinMD.com. Like alcoholics, they dream their troubled relationship to food can miraculously heal, perhaps if their brain readjusts its "setpoint" or they spend "an hour in the gym each day," says Sharma. The increase in food addiction might correlate with the decrease in family meals, indicates some research. Studies by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse reveal that food and other addictions are less likely to develop in children of families who eat together three times a week. Who remembers family meals? 7. Lifestyle Factors There's another habit we learn
(or don't learn) while growing up that can contribute to obesity--a
strict bedtime, which few adults or children observe anymore. After
just six nights of getting only four hours sleep, healthy young
volunteers showed signs of prediabetes, reports the
Chicago Tribune. Other studies show
sleep-deprived adults are more likely to be fat, regardless of how
much they exercise and what they eat. Why? Researchers hypothesize
that sleep deprivation changes levels of the hormone ghrelin (that
tells the brain to eat), leptin (that tells the brain we're full)
and the stress hormone cortisol. There's even another lifestyle
contribution to obesity: room temperature. ABC News reported that
air conditioning can add weight by sparing the body the need to
regulate temperature, which is a mechanism that burns fat. 8. Government
Duplicity Is the government really
helping people to slim down and avoid foods that pack on pounds and
invite the risk of heart disease? High-saturated-fat foods like
cheese? Not according to a
New York Times expose in 2010. A USDA group with 162
employees called Dairy Management, mostly funded by farmers, is
shamelessly committed to getting people to double and triple
their cheese intake to replace profits from falling milk sales. According to the Times, Dairy Management has supported Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Burger King, Wendy's and Domino’s in "cheesifying" their menu options, putting dairy farmers' profits before consumer health. "If every pizza included one more ounce of cheese, we would sell an additional 250 million pounds of cheese annually,” rhapsodized the Dairy Management chief executive in a trade publication. Dairy Management received $5.3 million from the USDA during one year, for an overseas dairy campaign, which almost equals the total $6.5 million budget of USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. That's the group that tells people not to eat high fat milk and cheese!
Martha Rosenberg frequently writes about the impact of the
pharmaceutical, food and gun industries on public health. Her
work has appeared in the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle,
Chicago Tribune and other outlets.
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