Obesity has become a huge problem in the United States. How big is this problem? It is reported that 1 in 3 Americans are obese today. It is a statistic that can no longer be ignored now. The phenomenon of obesity is not sparing France, which could make up for the US obesity rate by 2020 according to some studies. In 2009, 1 in 7 French people were obese and 1 in 3 were overweight.
In his article, Americans Are Huge: 5 Surprising Reasons Why We May Be Getting Fatter, (Americans are huge: 5 surprising reasons why we can be bigger), author Martha Rosenberg notes that the average American’s weight increased by 12 kilograms in the four decades between 1960 and 2000, which for her is associated with five key factors.
However, these factors may be surprising to many, considering that none of them mentions the most widely mentioned cause of weight gain, namely calories.
While calories are certainly a crucial part of the problem, there are many other environmental and lifestyle factors that are likely to play a much more significant role, mainly because most people do not realize that they are affected by these factors, and therefore fail to take them into account. These factors are as follows:
1. Antibiotics in food and medicines
What most people can’t understand is the strong connection between our microbiota and weight gain. Irrefutable evidence suggests a complex link between excessive antibiotic use and weight gain.
There is a general tendency to treat all infections with antibiotics. The problem with excessive use of antibiotics is that it eliminates the good bacteria from your gut. Beneficial bacteria (probiotics) are actually so crucial to your health that researchers have compared them to a ‘newly recognized organ’.
The US uses 15 thousand tons of antibiotics each year to breed farm animals. This represents about 80% of all antibiotics used in the United States. In cattle, antibiotics are used to prevent disease and also promote weight gain.
Research suggests that antibiotic-swept meat has the same weight gain effect on humans who consume it.
2. Other medicines that promote weight gain used in livestock production
Other medicines used to make livestock grow the same effects on humans. Ractopamine is an example. This beta-agonist medicine works as a growth promoter by increasing protein synthesis, making the animal more muscular.
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