REVIEW: Programmed to be Fat

Are we fat because of man-made chemicals? That is what a new documentary, screened last night on Canadian television, asked.

The programme, which has gained attention across the globe, is part of environmentalist David Suzuki’s The Nature of Things  series. It looked at the scientific evidence showing that chemicals in the environment may be programming us to be fat. And this programming begins before we’re even born.

It’s true that, as a society, we eat too much and don’t exercise enough. But scientists around the globe have begun looking beyond the obvious causes, in part because of weight changes in a group that can’t chew, let alone jog: babies.

It begins in the womb

Infant obesity has risen more than 70% in just 20 years. You can’t blame babies for unhealthy lifestyles or not going to the gym often enough.  The scientists suspect that, starting in the womb, man-made chemicals may be triggering changes to our metabolism that result in life-long weight gain.

The documentary, Programmed to be Fat?, tells the stories of three scientists whose unexpected findings led them to follow the research of Paula Baillie Hamilton, a curious doctor in Scotland, baffled by her own inability to lose weight.

For three years she pored over existing research on environmental chemicals and finally published a key study in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in 2002, linking endocrine-disrupting chemicals to the obesity epidemic.

The scientists came across the paper while puzzling over their own research results.  None of their studies were about fat, but they had two things in common – they were all researching endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and they all ended up with unusually heavy lab animals.

A 21st Century problem

Endocrine disruptors are all around us – in plastic, in cans, in the water we drink, in the food we eat and the cosmetics we use.  They’re not supposed to be in our bodies, but they are there just the same. And if the science is correct, the implications for human health are profound.

Now,  scientists are going beyond animal research to human population studies, testing the theory that fetal exposure to man-made chemicals is a key reason for our global obesity epidemic.

The idea that chemicals can make us fat may sound strange, especially since most of us have been brought up on a calories-in/calories-out approach to weight control. But in spite of the fact that the media continue to categorise the finding that something other than food could influence weight gain as ‘new’ and  ‘controversial’, the science is copious and compelling and as Dr Baillie Hamilton’s own research shows, goes back many years.

Beyond chemicals

It also goes beyond just exposure to chemicals. In 2006 NYR Natural News Editor Pat Thomas produced an in-depth investigation into the chemical link to weight gain for the Ecologist magazine. This was followed in 2008 by the book The 21^st Century is Making You Fat.

The book broadened the scope of the problem beyond chemicals and into other aspects of modern life that work synergistically to make gaining weight easy and losing it hard. These include exposure to environmental chemicals lack of sleep in a 24/7 culture, the huge number of pharmaceuticals we take, the rise of allergies and stress. It also took into accounted the pervasive influence of the diet industry a multibillion pound moneyspinner that encourages unhealthy yo-yo dieting – which has been shown to encourage rebound weight gain.

A global epidemic

Globally the prevalence of overweight and obesity has increased steadily since 1970. The World Health Organization has declared overweight as one of the top 10 health risks in the world and one of the top five in developed nations.

According to recent estimates, some 7% of the global adult population is clinically obese, the number of  people globally who are overweight – estimated to be 1 billion – now equal the number who are starving.

Obesity has serious long-term consequences for health.  While it is not an immediately lethal disease itself, obesity plays a role in triggering or worsening a number of chronic, sometimes serious diseases and conditions Including hypertension, high cholesterol, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, gall bladder disease, asthma, mental health concerns (e.g. depression and low self esteem), and joint and bone disorders.

Being overweight or obese can also contribute to many problems in women’s reproductive system like prolonged or heavy periods, menstrual pain, delayed ovulation, PMS, infertility, amenorrhea, fibroids, tumors of uterus, breast cancer, endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer and uterine prolapse.

Says Thomas, “To even ask the question why do we gain weight may seem ridiculous. Everyone knows we gain weight because we eat too much. It’s a simple equation, isn’t it? So simple in fact that people who fail for one reason or another to lose weight must either be greedy or lazy or a diet cheater.

“But the scientific fact is diet regimes have a shockingly high failure rate. In fact, depending upon how one reads the medical literature, conventional medical diet strategies have a success rate of only between 3 and 7%.

“Do the math. This means that conventional weight loss strategies have a failure rate of between 93 and 97 %. Surely, there is something more complex to the current epidemic of obesity than simply eating too much, or not exercising enough.”