Eating more is the main cause of increased obesity in the United States

A recent study was conducted with a completely new approach to, for the first time, finding the level of contribution of food and exercise habits to the increase in obesity in the community. Research has concluded that an increase in obesity in the US since the 1970s has been largely due to the excessive intake of energy into the body.

Researchers have long argued in the answer to the main cause of obesity - what percentage is due to eating too much, increasing calories in the body, and what percentage is due to physical inactivity. While they decided to still make a general recommendation that to combine eating less and advocate more to fight obesity, in fact they continue to argue in the above two measures, it is not a core issue. but the community needs to pay attention.

The study presented at the meeting of the European Parliament on obesity last Friday was the first study to answer the question of the main cause of obesity with the combination of consideration of problems. topics: metabolic relations, thermodynamics, epidemiological data and agricultural data.

'There have been many theories that both poor physical activity and increased energy intake are the main causes of obesity. Up to now, no proposal has ever suggested how to quantify the contribution of these two factors. Our research confirms that rapid weight gain in the American population comes mostly from people eating more and having more calories. Physical activity does not seem to matter much, 'said Dr. Boyd Swinburn, head of the research team, head of the Department of Public Health, Director of the WHO Cooperation Center on Obesity Prevention at Deakin University, Australia, stated.

Scientists began with testing 1,399 adults and 963 children to find out how much energy their bodies had consumed in living conditions completely out of motion.

After obtaining energy consumption from each person, Swinburn and colleagues can calculate how much adults need to eat to maintain a stable weight, and how much children need to eat to maintain normal growth.

Then they figured out how much food the Americans had eaten, by taking the national feed supply data (the amount of food produced and imported, minus the amount of export, the amount of waste removed, the amount used for animals and other purposes) in the 1970s and in the first few years of the 21st century.

Researchers have used the results they have to predict the amount of body weight gain that Americans have achieved during a 30-year study period in food conditions as the only influencing factor. They used data from a national survey (NHANES) that had American weight data for the 1970s and early 2000s to find real weight gain during that time.

'If the actual increase in body weight is exactly what we predicted, it means that food intake is the only factor causing obesity from 1970 until now. If there is a difference, then physical activity also plays a role. '

Researchers found that, in children, the predicted weight gain and the actual increase are close to each other, which means that increasing the level of energy intake in the 30 years studied is the cause of weight gain. .

'For adults, we predict that they will weigh 10.8 kg, but in fact they weigh more than 8.6 kg. This suggests that eating more is a cause of weight gain, but it is possible that over the past 30 years people have also increased their activity levels, which has partly reduced volume, ' Swinburn said.

'To get back to average weight like the 70s, we need to reduce 350 calories a day for children (equivalent to a box of milk and a small French fry) and reduce 500 calories a day. for adults (equivalent to about a large hamburger), ' says Swinburn. 'Otherwise, we can achieve the same by increasing physical activity: children need an extra 150 minutes of walking, and adults need an extra 110 minutes a day. Although both measures work, in terms of practical applicability, the focus needs to be on reducing the daily energy load. '

He emphasized that people should not forget that physical activity is still part of the measures to reduce obesity, and advocacy should continue to be encouraged due to its many positive benefits. But he also stressed that in the fight against obesity, people should not expect too much in physical activity, and that public health policies should be directed toward encouraging people to eat. fewer.

The new study found that an increase in obesity in the United States since the 1970s has been largely due to the excessive intake of energy in the body.(photo:: iStockphoto / Michael Krinke)