Obesity 'becoming top US killer'

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Obesity 'becoming top US killer'

By Michael Buchanan
BBC correspondent in Washington



The US government is trying to encourage Americans to exercise
A new study in the United States says obesity is likely to become the country's biggest preventable killer.
The research, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the latest work showing widespread weight gain among Americans of all ages.

"We're just too fat," Health Secretary Tommy Thompson said at the unveiling of the study.

It found that poor diet and lack of exercise caused 400,000 deaths in the US in the year 2000.

That figure represents a 33% jump since 1990.

Fast food 'lifestyle'

If current trends continue, then obesity will shortly overtake smoking as the single biggest cause of preventable deaths in the United States.


Several overweight teens recently tried to sue the McDonald's fast food chain
Overweight people, says the research, are more likely to suffer heart disease, cancer, strokes and develop diabetes.

Two-thirds of US adults and nine million children are either overweight or obese.

This is the result of a fast-food lifestyle, increased use of computers and less physical activity.

The release of the study coincides with a new government drive to encourage Americans to do more exercise.

HAVE YOUR SAY
One should learn to control one's eating habits

Samia Taqi, Pakistan


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Lawsuits

But critics say greater emphasis should be put on telling people to simply eat less and argue that the administration is frightened of antagonising the multi-billion-dollar fast-food industry.

As if to confirm their fears, as the study revealed a fattening nation, the House of Representatives announced that it plans to push for a bill that would limit "frivolous" lawsuits which accuse fast food chains of causing obesity.

Several teenagers recently tried to sue the McDonald's fast food chain, claiming its products made them fat.

Their case was thrown out and, as one supporter of the bill says, "frivolous lawsuits will not make anyone thin".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3496918.stm

 

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IMO if you take enough exercise, especially stuff like walking, then you can enjoy a fair amount of crap without it making you a fatty.

A lot of overweight people barely walk the length of themselves, so their metabolic rate is permanently low.


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Why fast food makes you get fat


Energy dense and dangerous...
The nutritional make up of fast food encourages people to gorge on it unintentionally, increasing their risk of obesity, research suggests.
Experts at the Medical Research Council found most fast food is very dense in calories - you only need a small amount to bump up your calorific intake.

They found that these "energy dense" foods can fool people into consuming more calories than the body needs.

The research is published in the journal Obesity Reviews.

Our bodies were never designed to cope with the very energy dense foods

Professor Andrew Prentice
A typical fast food meal has a very high energy density. It is more than one and a half times higher than an average traditional British meal and two and a half times higher than a traditional African meal.

The researchers concluded that a diet high in fast foods will increase a person's risk of weight gain and obesity - even though they may feel that they are eating no more than they would if they ate an average meal.

Subconscious ability

Researcher Professor Andrew Prentice, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "We all possess a weak innate ability to recognise foods with a high energy density.

"We tend to assess food intake by the size of the portion, yet a fast food meal contains many more calories than a similar-sized portion of a healthy meal.

"Since the dawn of agriculture, the systems regulating human appetite have evolved for the low energy diet still being consumed in rural areas of the developing world where obesity is almost non-existent.

"Our bodies were never designed to cope with the very energy dense foods consumed in the West and this is contributing to a major rise in obesity."

Professor Prentice drew particular attention to the consequences of a diet high in fast foods for children.

"Children have not yet developed any of the learned dietary restraint that needs to be exerted by anyone wishing to remain slim in the modern environment.

"It's surely a stark paradox that the strategy used to achieve rapid weight gain in malnourished children in Africa - the frequent offering of energy-dense foods - has now become the norm for many overweight children in affluent societies."

Limited choice

Dr Susan Jebb, of the MRC Human Nutrition Research Centre, said: "In many outlets, the choice is so limited that it's virtually impossible to select a combination of items with even a moderate energy density.

"You'd need to eat well below the portion size offered to avoid greatly exceeding recommended energy and fat requirements.

"Fast food companies could play a major part in halting the rise in obesity if they adopted a more positive attitude to healthy eating such as providing meals of lower energy density, appropriately marketed and with point-of-sale nutrition labelling."

Dr Jebb said many supermarket ready-meals and convenience foods were also very energy dense.

"If we're going to stem the tide of obesity, it's important that we don't just swap one unhealthy meal for another.

"Research has shown time and again that to maintain a healthy weight, we need to eat foods with less fat and added sugars and to take more exercise."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3210750.stm