PRESS RELEASE FROM THE
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OBESITY
This press release is copyrighted to the International Journal of Obesity.
Understanding the causes of obesity
The amount of sleep a person has, or their exposure to air conditioning may be as important causes of obesity as diet and exercise, according to a review article published this week by International Journal of Obesity. This could have implications for both the treatment and prevention of obesity.
David B. Allison and colleagues reviewed several studies on the impact of food marketing practices and institutionally driven reductions in physical activity on promoting increases in obesity, and found that the data are far from conclusive. They went on to review data regarding 10 other putative causes of obesity that are less often considered, but for which the data are at least equally compelling. These factors included the average hours of sleep that people have, the prescribing of psychotropic medications, and the use of air conditioning and heating.
This review introduces 10 novel hypotheses regarding factors that may have contributed to the rise of the obesity epidemic, and suggests the need for a more broad-reaching and open-minded inquiry on putative contributing factors.
Author Contact details:
David Allison (University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL, USA)
E-mail: [email protected]
Genes, not environment determine physical activity levels in children
‘Activity genes’ that children are born with influence their physical activity levels more than environmental factors, according to research to be published in the July issue of International Journal of Obesity. This means television watching and computer games might not affect a child’s overall activity, and that some children are genetically more active than others.
Terence Wilkin and colleagues from the Peninsula Medical School studied data from three large activity studies in primary school children. Two were carried out in the south of England and one in Scotland. Using sophisticated accelerometers to measure activity, and once confounding factors had been stripped away, the researchers found that children of the same age averaged exactly the same daily activity no matter what their circumstances. There were no environmental factors that could account for the uniform activity levels across all the studies.
If the child exercised less at school, he/she would simply compensate outside of school. The findings have implications for governments planning to increase provision for physical activity in children – research investigating how to make children exercise more at school may not be as helpful as determining why some children exercise more than others.
Author contact details:
Terry Wilkin (Peninsula Medical School, Plymouth, UK)
Tel: +44 7000 363627; E-mail: [email protected]
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Ruth Francis (Nature, London)
Tel: +44 20 7843 4562; E-mail: [email protected]
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