While it’s widely accepted that higher calorie intake and decreased physical activity are both contributors to growing obesity rates, a new study examined the relative importance of each when attempting to reverse obesity.
A recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academic of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) detailed how energy expenditure throughout the day — including the total amount, the amount spent on activity, and the amount required for basic bodily functions — varied between adults from 34 populations across six continents, accounting for lifestyle and economic variation.
Economic development is an important factor to consider in the context of obesity, the study argued, as more economically developed areas are generally associated with higher calorie intake and lower activity levels in its occupants.
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Fruits and vegetables.
The study reinforced general perception regarding the positive correlation between economic development and obesity, and the opposite for hunter-gatherer and farming societies. However, the study found, there wasn’t a significant difference between the two types of populations when it came to calories burned.
This can be explained by the body’s tendency to adjust the way it uses up energy so it remains fairly stable on a day-to-day basis.
“So if we burn more of our energy every day on physical activity, on exercise, after a while our bodies will adjust and spend less energy on the other tasks that we sort of don’t notice going on in the background,” said Herman Pontzer, a biology and global health professor and one of the study’s authors, per NPR.
With activity level and energy expenditure remaining roughly the same across different kinds of populations, the remaining factor — diet — appeared to be the significant driving force behind obesity, scientists said.
The disparity comes from ultra-processed foods, the study continues, which is widely more available and more relied upon in economically developed populations. The higher the percentage of ultra-processed food in daily calorie intake, the greater risk of obesity.
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This isn’t to say that exercise is unimportant, Pontzer told NPR, but it means a clean diet of whole foods is crucial towards combating obesity.
Read the original article on People
