A study published in Obesity Research & Clinical Practice tracked the diet and exercise habits of 36,400 American adults from 1971 to 2008 and found that even if they exercised the same amount and ate the same number of calories, the BMI of a person in 2006 was 2.3 points higher than someone of the same age in 1988. What gives?
As any 25 year old can tell you, there's a lot of pressure on millenials to eat less and exercise more (there were hundreds of memes to choose from like the one above). But there's obviously more going on than just calories in and calories out.
Factors other than diet and physical activity may be contributing to the increase in BMI over time. Further research is necessary to identify these factors and to determine the mechanisms through which they affect body weight.
The authors suggest several factors that may explain why it's harder for millenials to stay thin:
Body weight is impacted by our lifestyle and environment, such as medication use, environmental pollutants, genetics, timing of food intake, stress, gut bacteria and even nighttime light exposure.
Many of these factors also influence quality and quantity of sleep. Sleep deprivation has been linked many serious health consequences including weight gain and metabolic disease, such as diabetes.
It's totally unfair, dude. But what can we do about it? Here are two thoughts:
1. Exercise control where we can. Improve sleep by treating sleep disorders. Reduce stress. Improve the quality of our diets.
2. Be kinder to people of all body types.
There's a huge weight bias against people with obesity. They're judged as lazy and self-indulgent. That's really not the case. If our research is correct, you need to eat even less and exercise even more.
If you or a loved one may have a sleep disorder, a sleep study may be the first step in getting the rest you need.
Sources:
Secular differences in the association between caloric intake, macronutrient intake, and physical activity with obesity. Brown, Ruth E. et al.Obesity Research & Clinical Practice
Image Credit: https://codispoti.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/sweat-is-fat-crying/
