
10 facts that make you fat
infected with a cold virus
Children exposed to a common cold strain called adenovirus-36 were more likely to be obese than unexposed children, according to findings published in September 2021 in the American journal Pediatrics. Adenovirus-36 is a common virus that can infect the respiratory system and eyes, and it can be spread by dogs coughing, sneezing and touching human hands.
Adenovirus-36 contains a unique gene that allows stem cells in the body to grow into fat cells that make people obese, according to research at the University of California, San Diego. In a study of 124 children, nearly 80% of subjects exposed to adenovirus-36 were obese children. Their average weight was 23kg more than children not exposed to adenovirus-36. In this experiment, it was found that immature fat cells infected with adenovirus-36 developed and differentiated much faster than normal. The researchers believe that this may be the pathological mechanism of adenovirus-36 leading to childhood obesity.
air-conditioned environment
According to a research article by Harvard Medical School professor Ashley Bowana recently published in the International Journal of Obesity: If people stay in an air-conditioned environment for a long time, their metabolism will slow down relatively; If you stay in an air-conditioned room for a long time, you will have less exercise and less energy consumption. In addition, the air circulation in the air-conditioned environment is poor, the indoor carbon dioxide concentration is often high, and the oxygen content is insufficient, making fat and glucose difficult to burn. Taken together, staying in an air-conditioned environment for a long time is more likely to gain weight.
Professor Ashley’s follow-up study found that in the southern region with the highest obesity rate in the United States, the proportion of households with air conditioning increased from 47% in 1997 to 97% in 2017; the obesity rate in this region increased from 19% in 1997 43% by 2017.
mom is a career woman
According to a study by the Maryland Institute of Medical Nutrition published in the “American Journal of Epidemiology” in May 2021, children of working women are more likely to be obese than children of full-time mothers. Children of working women are six times more likely to be overweight and obese than children of other working women. Eating fatty ready-to-eat meals after school and unmonitored snacking are key contributors to obesity in children, researchers believe.
The research team at the Maryland Institute for Medicine and Nutrition analyzed data on the height and weight of 5,000 children born between 2000 and 2015 at ages 3 to 13, as well as their parents’ employment status. It was found that nearly 56% of the children of working women were obese; 28% of the children of part-time working mothers were obese; only 13% of the children of housewives were obese. A mother who worked an extra 10 hours a week was 10 percent more likely that her child would be overweight by age 3. The research team found that the longer the mother worked, the higher the child’s body mass index. This is due to the fact that long working hours make it difficult for mothers to prepare healthy food for their children and give them more opportunities to eat unhealthy foods.
lack of sleep
Children who regularly get too little sleep, from play or other reasons, are more likely to gain weight than those who get enough sleep. This is the conclusion drawn by the research team of Northwestern University professor Herb Kelleher after 20 years of tracking and investigation of 20,000 American children.
The study, which began in 1996 and ended in 2016, surveyed 22,810 children aged 3 to 12 across the United States. After analyzing and sorting out the data obtained in the past 20 years, Professor Kelleher wrote a paper and published it in the “Journal of Child Development” in the United States. According to Professor Kelleher, the study required parents to record their children’s sleep time and weight changes in detail. The recorded data included the length of the child’s sleep time, when to sleep, when to get up, and changes in height and weight. Finally, the researchers concluded that children with less sleep time are indeed more likely to gain weight: among children aged 3 to 8, the chances of getting fat will decrease by 30% to 36% if they sleep for an extra hour, and this proportion is between 3 and 8 years old. Among children aged 8 to 13, it is 30% to 34%.
Sleep experts say that children aged 5 to 12 should sleep 10 to 11 hours a day, and teenagers should sleep 8 to 9 hours a day. However, the data obtained by Professor Kelleher shows that a 7-year-old child sleeps less than 10 hours a day, and a 14-year-old child will gain weight in less than 8.5 hours.
removal of tonsils
Everyone knows that tonsil removal is the most common operation for children, and researchers at Saint Louis University in the United States found that children who had their tonsils removed gained more weight after the operation than children who did not have the operation. And children who had their tonsils removed, whether or not they also had their adenoids removed, were at increased risk of postoperative obesity. The study followed 795 children aged 0 to 18 who were either normal weight or overweight and had tonsillectomy or tonsil-adenoidectomy. The body mass index of the 126 children in the first group increased by 5.5% to 8.2%; the standard body mass index of the 419 children in the second group increased by 46% to 100%; in the third group, 50% to 75% of the children underwent surgery weight gain afterwards.
Weight gain in children with tonsilectomy may have several mechanisms. Dysphagia or painful swallowing may lead children with chronic tonsillitis to reduce their calorie intake, according to experts. When the tonsils are removed, these children can eat more calories; recovery from surgery also prompts parents to feed their children more, which can further increase caloric intake and weight gain.
Turn on the lights at night
According to a new study from the National Institutes of Health published in the October 2021 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, keeping the lights on all night may increase your waistline. This large-scale study of more than 40,000 women found that sleeping with lights on at night can lead to obesity in women through a 5-year follow-up survey, and turning off the lights before going to bed can reduce the risk of obesity in women.
Another study led by Manfred de Koller, professor of medicine at Columbia University, also demonstrated that for 8 consecutive weeks, mice exposed to dim light at night gained 50% more weight than mice in a completely dark environment at night. All mice had the same food and physical activity. Professor Manfred said the results also apply to people who often eat late at night.
Professor Manfrey pointed out that light at night is common, such as street lamps, neon signs in shops and other light sources in bedrooms, which can suppress the sleep hormone melatonin and 24-hour circadian rhythm. However, humans have long been genetically adapted to a natural environment with sunlight during the day and darkness at night, and exposure to artificial light at night may alter hormones and other physiological processes, increasing the risk of health conditions such as obesity.
have an older mother
Numerous studies have shown that older mothers are more likely to have obese children. A recent study in the journal Archives of Disease in Children found that children born to women 30 or older had 2.6 to 2.8 percent more body fat than children born to women younger than 25.
A 2015 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that girls born to mothers aged 35 and older were less likely to grow up to age 9 to 10 than girls born to mothers aged 21 or younger. Obesity rates are higher.
exposure to environmental pollutants
Pollution may have an effect on your body’s metabolism, according to research published in the journal Food Science and Nutrition Reviews and the International Journal of Obesity. Endocrine disruptors – such as bisphenol A in plastics and the flame retardant polybrominated biphenyls – have been found in humans and are linked to obesity by interfering with hormone signaling, the study said. Pesticides that affect hormone synthesis and metabolism can also enter humans through the food chain.
On the other hand, Dr. Mark Beckholt, director of the Center for Basic Medicine, State University of New York, pointed out that pollutants such as PM2.5, second-hand smoke and dust in the environment also carry certain chemical substances that can cause metabolic disorders such as endocrine in the human body, thus lead to obesity. Indoor dust, for example, is not only mixed with dander, pollen and other fine particles from the surrounding environment, but also contains endocrine disruptor chemicals that affect hormone changes in the body. Once the hormone secretion of the human body is disturbed, it will disturb the normal substance metabolism, prompting the fat cells to accumulate more triglycerides and cause obesity.
Genetic
Scientists have identified 18 new genetic markers that may play a role in obesity and 13 that could determine whether fat accumulates around the waist or hips, according to two studies published in the November 2021 issue of the journal Nature Genetics new tag. Many of these markers are in or near genes not previously associated with obesity, and by understanding what these genes do, scientists may uncover the causes of obesity in different populations, the researchers said.
The University of Maryland research team analyzed 32,000 people through genome-wide association analysis, screened out a large number of obesity-related mutations, and obtained 6 new obesity genes. “Nature Genetics” analyzed the six newly discovered genes: TMEM18, KCTD15, GNPDA2, SH2B1, MTCH2 and NEGR1. Professor Soren Snitek of the University of Maryland research group said: The six newly discovered genes are active in brain cells and control obesity by affecting the central nervous system. Professor Snitke said that the functions of these six genes will be further studied through other means, and finally it will be known whether changing the diet structure or physical exercise can control obesity most effectively.
Mother eating fatty food during pregnancy
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati and the Medical College of Georgia found that rats fed a high-fat diet were more likely to give birth to obese mothers than those fed a normal diet, according to a study published in the journal The Federation of Societies for Experimental Biology. In mice, excess birth weight is a risk factor for later obesity.
Researchers at Yale University in the United States published a research report in the journal Cell, stating that experiments showed that some neuronal circuits in the hypothalamus (an important brain region that regulates metabolism) appeared in mice born to mothers who drank a high-fat diet. abnormal. These mice were more likely to be obese or diabetic than offspring born to mothers who ate a normal diet. The researchers believe that the results of this study may be able to explain why the offspring of obese parents are more likely to be obese.
Researchers at the Medical College of Georgia believe the babies were oversized because the mother’s fat intake caused the placenta to oversupply the fetus with nutrients. Researchers have found that a pregnant woman’s diet that includes high-fat foods may alter the brain molecular and cellular mechanisms of her offspring, making them more prone to obesity or diabetes.

