Lifestyle Factors
There's another habit
we learn (or don't learn) while growing up that can contribute to obesity
too--a strict bedtime, which few
adults or children observe anymore. After just six nights of getting only four
hours sleep, healthy young volunteers showed signs of prediabetes reports the
Chicago
Tribune. Other studies show sleep
deprived adults are more likely to be fat, regardless of how much they exercise
and what they eat . Why?
Researchers hypothesize that sleep deprivation changes levels of the hormone
ghrelin (that tells the brain to eat), leptin (that tells the brain we're full)
and the stress hormone cortisol. There's even another lifestyle contribution to
obesity: room temperature. ABC News reported that air
conditioning can add weight by sparing the body the need to regulate
temperature, which is a mechanism that burns fat.
Government Duplicity
Is the government really helping people to slim down and
avoid foods that pack on pounds and invite risk heart disease?
High-saturated-fat foods like cheese? Not according to a New York
Times expose in 2010. A USDA group with 162 employees called Dairy
Management, mostly funded by farmers, is shamelessly committed to getting
people to double and trouble their cheese intake to replace profits from falling milk sales.
According to the Times, Dairy
Management has supported Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Burger King, Wendy's and Domino's
in "cheesifying" their menu options, putting dairy farmers' profits
before consumer health. "If every pizza included one more ounce of cheese,
we would sell an additional 250 million pounds of cheese annually," rhapsodized
the Dairy Management chief executive in a trade publication. Dairy Management
received $5.3 million from the USDA during one year, for an overseas dairy
campaign, which almost equals the
total $6.5 million budget of
USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. That's the group that tells people
not to eat high fat milk and
cheese! END
An earlier version of this report appeared on Alternet.org
Martha Rosenberg's new book, Born with a Junk
Food Deficiency, has been the top health policy book since its April
release. She will appear on Book TV's After Words on C-SPAN this month.
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