Eating Right for Weight Control 3

Factors That Cannot Be Changed
Although these factors are beyond your control, their impact on your weight can be modified by changing your diet, and increasing your level of physical activity.

Being vigilant about what you eat, when, and why, can stop you from consuming a large number of calories in a mindless manner.
If you don’t consume them in the first place, these factors will not have as much of a chance to kick in and provide you with an uphill struggle to lose weight and keep it off.

Heredity
Studies show that 80% of children born to two obese parents will themselves become obese, compared with 14% of children born to normal-weight parents. Research on identical twins shows similarly high rates of inheritance.

However, studies comparing the weights of adoptees with the weights of their biological and adopted parents indicate that genetic factors are responsible for only about a third of the difference in weight.

Heredity seems to influence the number of fat cells in the body, how much and where fat is stored, and how much energy the body uses at rest (your metabolism)

In addition, childhood obesity tends to translate into adult obesity.

About 80% of obese children become obese adults (although only about 20% of all obese adults were obese as children).

At present, we have more obese children than ever before, and they are even manifesting metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes, and even high cholesterol. Clearly something has happened to America’s diet for this to be so pervasive.

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Author: cs

Carolyn Stone has been working in consumer health publishing and women’s interest publishing for over 22 years. She is the author of more than 200 guides and courses designed to help readers transform their lives through easy action steps. In her spare time, she is actively involved in fostering children and pets.