New Study on Obesity

A new study by a group of Austrailian researchers found that obesity in Americans is caused by overeating, not inactivity.

My friend Bill tipped me off via email to this unbelievable story. (Tongue deeply inserted into cheek.) Here's what Bill wrote to me in the email:

"Fred, What's it like to continually be backed up by the evidence?"

"Lovely." I replied.

This was found to be especially true for children. For my book Strong Kids Healthy Kids I scoured the research and, lo and behold, I could not find a single study that supported inactivity as a cause for adolescent obesity. In fact, research revealed that obese kids were just as active as lean kids.

Said Boyd A. Swinburn, a professor at the health faculty of Australia's Deakin University:

"Among children, the tests yielded a 100 percent match, leading researchers to conclude that changes in physical activity had had no impact whatsoever on America's children growing fatter."

Thank you Dr. Swinburne.

If you all recall, Bob Greene (Oprah's trainer) argued this point with me  Clearly Bob had not read any of the research. Bob insisted that research clearly shows that physical activity is necessary for kids to lose fat and inactivity is one of the main causes of the alarming rate of fat gain in kids today. 'Fraid not.

The researchers found that American adults actually weighed less than could be expected from their diet. Swinburn remarked:

"Which means that if anything over that period of time the adults had been increasing their physical activity, not decreasing."

That's one way to look at it. However, there are almost no studies that support the idea that increasing physical activity will result in weight loss. The ACSM and the American Heart Association had this to say in the 2007 updated recommendations for physical activity and public health Aha exercise recs 2007:

“It is reasonable to assume that persons with relatively high daily energy expenditures would be less likely to  gain weight over time, compared with those who have  low energy expenditures. So far, data to support this hypothesis are not particularly compelling.”

   

My guess is that Americans have NOT increased their physical activity a jot. Rather, an increase in carbohydrate consumption is the cause of the added fat gain despite the total calories not adding up. We know from recent research that isocaloric diets of different carbohydrate amounts yield different gains in adiposity. In other words, people gain more fat on non-reduced, isocaloric diets that are higher in carbohydrates. Put simply carbs make you fatter than calories from fat and protein. In other, other, words, a calorie is not a calorie.

And we know that carbohydrate intake has increased dramatically from the recent NHANES figures. In fact since 1971, carb intake is up in men and women by a whopping 23% and 38% respectively.


I am tickeld thin by this recent study and perhaps now we'll be able to get somewhere in the fight against obesity especially for kids.

Let's ride into the sunset of health in the direction science says the horse is going.

Comments

[Dana]

I am a sedentary person, always have been a sedentary person, and would have to find a very compelling reason to ever break that habit, although I am taking a cardio class twice a week right now. (I thought it would make an interesting change of pace, maybe shake things up a bit, har har.) And yet I have not been fat my whole life. From preschool age to age 21 I was slender, and squarely in the midst of normal BMI range.

It ain't the activity. My weight did drop slightly when I went through Army basic training but, judging by the experiences of some of the other girls in my platoon, I bet I lost bone mass. Just that I had more to spare than some of them did, since some of them wound up with stress fractures.

[nougat]

i accept that this is true. the difficult part is now changing our ways of eating. main meals would only need slight tweaking but what about breakfast when we are so used to having cereals and toast etc??

[Chad]

Thank you for stating "a calorie is not a calorie." I've argued this point numerous times, but some still do not get it.

[Fred Hahn]

Really? What seemed unclear? Please specify so I can clarify.

[joe]

Well some of the comments were true others seem unclear.

[Fred Hahn]

Thanks Brandon. I'm trying...

[Brandon Schultz, D.C.]

Fred,
Great posting about this problem. So many people who needed to lose weight would tell me they didn't have the 60 minute minimum many "experts" recommended for physical activity daily to lose weight. Getting them to drop the sugars and starched and begin brief, intense strength training is very much possible for so many people, not mind-numbing, joint abusing steady state "cardio" work. Great post Fred!
Just like Banting many years ago: Drop the starches and watch the weight fall off!
In health
Brandon