According to a researcher in the U.S. losing and keeping off weight requires a lifelong commitment and effort.
University of South Florida researcher Barbara Hansen, PhD, says long-term studies show that lifetime calorie restraint to prevent obesity is the most powerful way to reduce age-related health problems such as high blood pressure, high triglycerides and the progression to diabetes.
Dr. Hansen says that the price of leanness is eternal vigilance and losing and keeping off weight requires a lifelong effort.
That she says amounts to maintaining a constant, realistic balance between total calories consumed and total calories expended.
Dr. Hansen is a physiologist and psychologist specializing in obesity, diabetes and their age-related health complications.
She is a professor of medicine and pediatrics, and directs the USF Health’s Center for Pre-clinical Research, which combines obesity, diabetes and aging research, and the Diabetes Complications Prevention Center.
In her latest studies with rhesus monkeys she has shown that lifetime calorie restraint to prevent obesity is the most powerful way to reduce age-related health problems such as high blood pressure and high triglycerides and to prevent or delay the progression of insulin resistance toward diabetes.
The monkeys whose food intake was maintained in amounts to assure a constant healthy body weight were not only healthier, but they lived longer than their counterparts who ate as much as they wanted.
Hansen says the studies have unequivocally demonstrated that 'if you prevent excess fat deposits in the body through excess calorie restraint, you will improve health and postpone death'.
Hansen says scientific evidence does not support assertions that the epidemic of obesity is the fault of the obese themselves or a "toxic" environment that seduces people with super-sized menus and convenience food at every corner.
She says an approach that places the 'blame on the patient' is both unfair and inappropriate, as scientists are not clear on the complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors that predispose some individuals to obesity while others seem to eat to their heart’s content without packing on the pounds.
Dr. Hansen considers "single cause" hypotheses such as diet composition, inactivity and obesity genes alone as too simplistic, and believes obesity is a continuum that develops early or late, quickly or slowly, along with 'a heavy dose of genetic predisposition'.