Obesity
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Lack of Sleep
55. Average amounts of sleep have fallen and many studies tie sleep deprivation to weight gain. Researchers at Columbia University found that people who sleep for 4 hours or less per night are 73% more likely to be obese, those sleeping for 5 hours are 50% likely to be obese and those who sleep for 6 hours were 23% more likely to be substantially overweight. A study published in the British Medical Journal found that kids who sleep less than 10½ hours a night are twice as likely to pile on weight as other children of their age. An average adult person needs about 7-8 hours of sleep.
56. Levels of the hormone “grehlin”, which makes people want to eat, have also been seen to increase in people who are sleep-deprived. Insufficient shut-eye appears to increase the production of the stress hormone “cortisol” which regulates appetite. High levels of cortisol seem to worsen bingeing and hunger resulting in weight gain. Moreover, too little sleep could keep your body from burning calories, which translates to more stored fat.
Heredity / Genetics
57. Obesity is known to run in heredity. It is an undeniable fact that generally the children of fat parents are also fat. Some experts feel that a person inherits only the structure of the body and not obesity. Obesity develops depending on factors like faulty eating habits and family lifestyle of parents, since we tend to imbibe our parents’ habits. A British study has established that parental obesity, high birth weight, rapid weight gain in the first year, rapid growth up to 2 years and high pre-school body fat levels are factors which put children at obesity risk later in life. A study by PGI, Chandigarh found that 30% of obese children had obese parents. Researchers from U.K. have provided an explanation for why some children hate to try new foods; it is in the genes. Both humans and other animals show reluctance to the new foods, known scientifically as “food neophobia”. However, repeatedly offering new foods about 10 times to children can make the foods more familiar and eventually even liked. It is considered that nutritious diet and cutting down on fats, sweets, alcohol and processed junk foods and adding exercise as an essentiality can offer an escape from inheritance related obesity.
