weight Archives - Page 3 of 3

Take a good look around you – at your family and friends. Do the bulk of them seem to be overflowing their chairs?

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (N Engl J Med 2007;357:370-9) seems to indicate that if you’re struggling with your weight, there is a good chance that your friends and family are, too.

Using data collected over 22 years from a “densely interconnected social network” of 12,067 people who took part in the Framingham Heart Study, the researchers found identifiable clusters of obese people, determined by a body mass index ≥30, present in the study’s network at all times. The clusters and the risk of obesity extended to three degrees of separation.

Here’s what they found:

A person’s chance of becoming obese increases by 57% if he or she has a friend who becomes obese. In a mutual friendship, the person’s risk of obesity increases by 171% if the friend becomes obese.

Among pairs of adult siblings, if one sibling becomes obese the chance that the other becoming obese increases by 40%. This is more prevalent among siblings of the same sex (55%) than among siblings of the opposite sex (27%). Among brothers, the chance of becoming obese increases by 44% if a brother becomes obese, and among sisters there’s a 67% increased risk if a sister becomes obese. Obesity in a sibling of the opposite sex doesn’t seem to affect the obesity risk of the other one.

Among married couples, when one spouse is obese the other is 37% more likely to become obese. Husbands and wives appear to affect each other similarly (44% and 37%, respectively).

Neighbors in the immediate geographic location don’t seem to have an effect on a person’s obesity.

Pairs of friends and siblings of the same sex seem to have more influence on the weight gain of each other than pairs of friends and siblings of the opposite sex. In same sex friendships, the probability of obesity in one person increases by 71% if the friend becomes obese. For friends of the opposite sex there’s no significant association. In same sex friendships, a man has a 100% increased chance of becoming obese if his male friend becomes obese. For female friends, the spread of obesity is a non-statistically significant 38%.

As the researchers conclude, “obesity appears to spread through social ties.” Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Most Americans Don’t Know How Many Calories They Need

Trying to lose weight? Do you have any idea about how many calories you should eat every day? According to a 2010 Food & Health Survey by the International Food Information Council, most Americans don’t have a clue.

The survey found that:

65% of people in the study said concerns about weight were the prime driver of their food choices
70% are concerned about their weight
only 17% could estimate how many calories someone of their age, height, weight and activity level should eat
for people trying to lose weight, only 19% are counting calories, and not many knew approximately how many calories they burn in a day
Nearly half said they’re trying to eat more protein
More than half worry about the amount of salt they eat and 60% buy reduced sodium products

What Dictates How Many Calories You Need?

How many calories you need varies with your age, gender, current weight, metabolism (the physical and chemical processes that naturally take place in your body to sustain life, like breathing and digestion), and your activity level. When you eat more calories than your body needs you gain weight; when you eat fewer than you need you lose weight.

What’s The Relationship Between Metabolism and Weight?

Your metabolism is usually measured in calories. Although you can estimate your average calorie requirement based on your weight and activity level, every person’s metabolism is different. To manage your weight it helps to know about how many calories you need every day. You can figure this out by knowing your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and the number of calories your activity requires.

Resting Metabolic Rate: if you are not an elite athlete, about 70% of the calories you expend every day you use for essential life processes. This is your resting metabolic rate (RMR) and is basically the number of calories your body requires to keep it alive if you just flaked out on the couch all day.
Calorie Requirements For Activity: These are the calories you burn through movement, activity and exercise. Even non-exercise activity, like fidgeting, counts. For many of us, this makes up about 30% of our total daily calorie expenditure.

SocialDieter Tip:

Here’s a link to a page where you can plug in some of your information to calculate your:

BMI (Body Mass Index) which will give you a general idea if are you considered normal weight, overweight, or obese

RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) to estimate how many calories you burn in a day based on your physiologic needs

Calorie Requirements for Activity: There is an activity calculator which shows how many calories different types of activities will burn and will also calculate how many calories you burn in 24 hours