According to this latest study, obesity problems have been greatly influenced by the plain fact that people eat too much.

AND I AGREE.

When I eat at home, my intake is so much smaller than when I’m out. My portions are smaller – and I as a result, EAT LESS. Most often, m meals only contain around 300 calories each…when I eat out, my average meal has around 600-700 calories. (That’s the size of a subway sandwich)

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Study Singles Out Overeating as Root Cause of U.S.

Obesity Epidemic

Research presented last week at the European Congress on Obesity in Amsterdam faults an uptick in overeating, rather than a decline in physical activity, for the current obesity epidemic in the United States, Reuters reports. Noting that experts have long assumed both reduced physical activity and increased caloric intake are driving up obesity rates, researchers from the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Obesity Prevention at Melbourne, Australia-based Deakin University sought to quantify their relative contributions to the epidemic. To that end, the researchers tested 1,399 adults and 963 children to discern the amount of calories burned under free-living conditions. After determining each participant’s calorie-burning rate, the researchers calculated how many calories adults would need each day to maintain a stable weight and how many calories children would need to maintain a healthy growth curve and compared that data with how many calories adults and children actually consumed based on national food supply data collected during the 1970s and early 2000s. The researchers then determined how much the average weight of American adults and children would increase across the 30-year period if food intake were the only influence. According to the findings, the “predicted and actual weight increase matched exactly” for children, suggesting that food intake was the single largest weight-gain factor among children. Meanwhile, the researchers’ calculations predicted that adults would be 23.8 pounds heavier in 2000 than in the 1970s. However, U.S. adults actually gained only 18.9 pounds across the 30-year time period, suggesting that although “excess food intake still explains the weight gain…there may have been increases in physical activity over the 30 years that have blunted what would have been a higher weight gain.” Based on the findings, the researchers suggest that children and adults would need to cut their daily caloric intake by 350 calories and 500 calories, respectively, to return to the average weights recorded during the 1970s. The researchers also note that similar results could be attained by increasing moderate physical activity by 150 minutes per day for children and 110 minutes for adults. However, they further contend that a combination of both reduced calorie consumption and increased physical activity is recommended (Rauscher, Reuters, 5/8/09; European Association for the Study of Obesity release, 5/8/09).

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