(Ivanhoe Newswire)-- Do Americans eat too much? The answer may be yes.
New research shows the rise in obesity in the United States since the 1970s was
virtually all due to increased food intake.
Investigators studied 1,399 adults and 963 children. They tested how many
calories these people burned and determined how many calories adults and
children needed to maintain a stable weight. They then calculated how much
Americans were actually eating, using national food supply data from the 1970s
and early 2000s.
The researchers used their findings to predict how much weight they would expect
Americans to have gained over the 30-year time period if food intake were the
only influence. They used data from a nationally representative survey that
recorded the weight of Americans during this time to determine the actual weight
gain over that period.
Results showed, in children, the actual weight increase matched exactly what the
researchers had predicted, indicating the increases in energy intake alone could
explain the weight increase.
"For adults, we predicted that they would be 10.8 kilograms heavier, but in
fact, they were 8.6 kilograms heavier. That suggests that excess food intake
still explains the weight gain, but that there may been increases in physical
activity over the 30 years that have blunted what would have been a higher
weight gain," Professor Boyd Swinburn, the study's leader, said in a press
release.
The study authors say to return to the average weights of the 1970s, Americans
would need to reverse the increased food intake by about 350 calories a day for
children and 500 calories a day for adults.
"This study demonstrates that weight gain in the American population seems to be
virtually all explained by eating more calories. It appears that changes in
physical activity played a minimal role," Swinburn was quoted as saying.
SOURCE: European Congress on Obesity
