The more time passes, the more people tend to think of weight as a genetic factor that cannot be controlled. This belief is extremely bad for health because it promotes bad eating habits, sedentary lifestyle and weight gain.
Researchers from Texas Tech University (United States) carried out a study with 4,166 male subjects and 4,655 women to understand how individuals’ relationship with weight and their eating habits changed over time.
The findings of this study reveal that with age, people tend to adopt bad eating habits, to abandon physical exercise because they believe that weight is a genetic factor that cannot be controlled. Both men and women have the same type of reasoning.
“If an individual thinks that the weight is escaping the influence of nutrition and exercise, it may induce them to adopt behaviors that will bring them some short-term pleasure, such as eating unhealthy food and avoiding exercise, instead of making him want to adopt long-term beneficial behaviors for line maintenance, ”say study authors Dr. Mike Parent and Jessica Alquist of Texas Tech University .
Obesity a real public health problem
In 2010, the World Health Organization estimated that overweight and obesity are the cause of 3.4 million deaths and reduced life expectancy.
In a report, the WHO says that Europeans are getting bigger and bigger: 27% of 13-year-olds and 33% of 11-year-olds are overweight. And, the number of overweight or obese inhabitants of the planet reached 2.1 billion in 2013 (including 671 million obese).
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