I agree. There are so many environmental factors, it’s extremely difficult to do on your own:
(Reuters) – America’s obesity epidemic is so deeply rooted that it will take dramatic and systemic measures – from overhauling farm policies and zoning laws to, possibly, introducing a soda tax – to fix it, the influential Institute of Medicine said on Tuesday.
In an ambitious 478-page report, the IOM refutes the idea that obesity is largely the result of a lack of willpower on the part of individuals. Instead, it embraces policy proposals that have met with stiff resistance from the food industry and lawmakers, arguing that multiple strategies will be needed to make the U.S. environment less “obesogenic.”
The IOM, part of the Washington-based National Academies, offers advice to the government and others on health issues. Its report was released at the Weight of the Nation conference, a three-day meeting hosted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cable channel HBO will air a documentary of the same name next week.
“People have heard the advice to eat less and move more for years, and during that time a large number of Americans have become obese,” IOM committee member Shiriki Kumanyika of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine told Reuters. “That advice will never be out of date. But when you see the increase in obesity you ask, what changed? And the answer is, the environment. The average person cannot maintain a healthy weight in this obesity-promoting environment.”
Endocrine disruptors. Endocrine disruptors. Endocrine disruptors. Endocrine disruptors.
Repeat after me, “Endocrine disruptors.”
Those are all the environmental pollutants, like BPA that leaches from some plastics, that mimic some actions of hormones in the body, but not well and not in a healthy way. Those hormones have a big role in fat deposition. They can alter the set point at which the body stores energy rather than keeping it available for use. In very extreme cases, the body is so busy storing fat it doesn’t retain enough for metabolic needs. In other words, the person is literally starving while putting on weight.
That’s very rare, but it less extreme cases (most of us) pollution can, literally, make you fat.