Showing posts with label Obesity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obesity. Show all posts
Friday, 30 May 2014
Monday, 5 May 2014
Exercise more, eat less? There’s a lot more to it, says scholar
Date:
April 28, 2014
Source:
Texas A&M University
Summary:
“When someone says of an obese person, ‘They should just eat less and exercise more,’ I say if it were that simple, obesity wouldn’t be the worldwide epidemic that it is,” says author of a new article, who studies the genetics of obesity. "It's a complex problem because there are so many drivers." Those drivers are divided into four categories: social, environmental, behavioral and biological.
When someone says of an obese person, 'They should just eat less and exercise more,' I say if it were that simple, obesity wouldn't be the worldwide epidemic that it is." That's according to Dr. Claude Bouchard, a faculty fellow of the Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study (TIAS), a program that attracts eminent scholars from around the world for extended stays to study, teach and conduct research alongside Texas A&M students and faculty.
Bouchard, director of the Human Genomics Lab at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., studies the genetics of obesity and says there are dozens of factors involved in determining whether or not a person becomes overweight or obese.
"It's a complex problem because there are so many drivers," says Bouchard, author or coauthor of several books and more than 1,000 scientific papers, and a former president of the International Association for the Study of Obesity. "Approaches focus on only a few and forget that while we control them there is compensation taking place elsewhere; there are other drivers that come into play."
He divides those drivers into four categories: social, environmental, behavioral and biological.
Social factors include less access to nutritious foods, more recreational eating, powerful and constant advertising, large food portions, poor school meals, eating on the run, food pricing and fewer meals cooked at home.
Our physical environment affects eating habits as well, says Bouchard, such as the absence of sidewalks, reliance on automobiles, building design and environmental pollutants.
Behavioral factors such as spending less time in strenuous activity, taking medications known to increase body weight, the absence of breast-feeding, eating corn fructose syrup, an increase in sedentary jobs and high-fat diets.
And biological factors such as genetics, viruses, gut microbiota (microorganisms living in the intestine), adipose tissue (body fat) biology, and metabolic rates can all affect weight and many are not within a person's control.
"The biology is very complex," Bouchard notes. "The response to environmental, social and behavioral factors is conditional on the genotype of an individual. Your adaptation to a diet or a given amount of exercise is determined by your genes."
More research is needed, he says, but there is a strong probability that diet and exercise programs for weight control or disease prevention will one day be tailored to an individual's genetic makeup. He asks, "Can we meet the challenge of identifying genomic predictors of the ability of a given person to respond favorably to a specific combination of food and exercise? I believe that we can."
Bouchard and his colleague, Dr. George Bray, have edited the latest version of the "Handbook of Obesity," the definitive guide on the subject, which thoroughly discusses the many contributing factors, treatment and prevention of this chronic disease.
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Texas A&M University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
There Are Five Key Reasons People Fail at Losing Weight
Why do so many people fail at losing weight? Laziness? Food addictions? Hereditary? While all of these things may be contributors, failure is often because of these factors:
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1) People don’t truly understand the major health risks of being overweight. Why do most want to lose weight? Most would say to look better. Looking better certainly is a benefit of losing weight, but this shouldn’t be the sole reason to lose weight. There is a 1000 pound gorilla in the room and it’s often ignored. Obesity kills millions of people each year. Thousands of studies have shown and prove without any doubt that losing body fat will improve and lengthen your life. Knowing the dangers of being overweight is a tremendous motivator to lose weight and keep it off.
2) People don’t commit to permanent lifestyle changes. So many people think of a “diet” as something temporary. Often people on ”diets” restrict themselves excessively and create a miserable situation. Sooner or later failure is inevitable because of the unreasonable demands of most “diets.” Some diets have very strict guidelines such as only eating certain foods, eliminating all carbs, etc. The key to losing weight long term is to make gradual lifestyle changes you can stick to forever.
3) Most individuals are not provided the truthful facts of losing weight and becoming healthier. With the conflicting information in the media, and all of the different lose weight quick fad diets, it’s understandable why so many people really don’t know the truth about losing fat and keeping it off long term.
4) Our own warped thought process often ruins our efforts to lose weight. For example, some people justify binging or giving up because they hit a small road-block. This isn’t an all or nothing game. For example, when I was overweight, if I ate an unhealthy lunch, I’d go ahead and eat an unhealthy dinner and snack all night since I already “messed up” the day. Or I’d say, I’ll start eating healthy on Monday since I’ve already eaten poorly this weekend.” Every person at times eats too much. Successful people will not let a road bump completely derail their entire lifestyle change. If you are not implementing positive lifestyle changes and losing weight, you are gaining weight. Again, there is no “in-between.”
5) Most people don’t realize how many calories they are eating and burning each day. So many overweight people eat thousands of extra calories without realizing it. It’s tough to know if you are gaining weight or losing weight each day unless you are keeping an eye on what you’re consuming. It’s vital to write down what you consume on a daily basis. Then cross reference the calories you’re eating with the calories you burn. Use the calculators on freeweightloss.com to help you determine calories burned.
Source: freeweightloss.com
1) People don’t truly understand the major health risks of being overweight. Why do most want to lose weight? Most would say to look better. Looking better certainly is a benefit of losing weight, but this shouldn’t be the sole reason to lose weight. There is a 1000 pound gorilla in the room and it’s often ignored. Obesity kills millions of people each year. Thousands of studies have shown and prove without any doubt that losing body fat will improve and lengthen your life. Knowing the dangers of being overweight is a tremendous motivator to lose weight and keep it off.
2) People don’t commit to permanent lifestyle changes. So many people think of a “diet” as something temporary. Often people on ”diets” restrict themselves excessively and create a miserable situation. Sooner or later failure is inevitable because of the unreasonable demands of most “diets.” Some diets have very strict guidelines such as only eating certain foods, eliminating all carbs, etc. The key to losing weight long term is to make gradual lifestyle changes you can stick to forever.
3) Most individuals are not provided the truthful facts of losing weight and becoming healthier. With the conflicting information in the media, and all of the different lose weight quick fad diets, it’s understandable why so many people really don’t know the truth about losing fat and keeping it off long term.
4) Our own warped thought process often ruins our efforts to lose weight. For example, some people justify binging or giving up because they hit a small road-block. This isn’t an all or nothing game. For example, when I was overweight, if I ate an unhealthy lunch, I’d go ahead and eat an unhealthy dinner and snack all night since I already “messed up” the day. Or I’d say, I’ll start eating healthy on Monday since I’ve already eaten poorly this weekend.” Every person at times eats too much. Successful people will not let a road bump completely derail their entire lifestyle change. If you are not implementing positive lifestyle changes and losing weight, you are gaining weight. Again, there is no “in-between.”
5) Most people don’t realize how many calories they are eating and burning each day. So many overweight people eat thousands of extra calories without realizing it. It’s tough to know if you are gaining weight or losing weight each day unless you are keeping an eye on what you’re consuming. It’s vital to write down what you consume on a daily basis. Then cross reference the calories you’re eating with the calories you burn. Use the calculators on freeweightloss.com to help you determine calories burned.
Source: freeweightloss.com
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