Obesity in Adults? Connect to Childhood

We all know that obesity is the result of high sugar intake as well and particularly artificially sweetened beverages as well as processed foods. Today millions of people across the world are suffering from obesity and its going only northwards. One of the reasons are the hectic and sedentary lifestyle of people.

A recent study based on the sugar consumption of adults in USA was carried out to look for answers around the growing cases of obesity there even when USA saw a decline in consumption of Sugar.

The research involved Alex Bentley, the head of Anthropology department at the Tennessee University of Knoxville and his colleagues. This study took a new approach and did not involve the current diet of the participants but their diet habits before 30-40 years back as in during childhood days. The reason behind doing the same as per the co-author of the study Damian Ruck, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Anthropology Department was that no other earlier research did particularly study around the temporal delay between high sugar consumption and increase in obesity rates.

So, Bentley and his team created a mathematical adult obesity model for obesity rise after 1990’s, a result of increase in consumption of sugar in 1970’s and 1980’s.

For the model testing they made use of data on sugar consumptions from the US Agriculture department and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during the period of 1990-2004.

The model used the stochastic process for showing the rise in obesity rates due to high sugar consumptions legion. The model further goes on to explain the delay of so many years from consumption to obesity rise.

It also made important observations around high increase in fructose corn syrup and mainly the rise before 2000 was a result of use of artificial sweeteners in processed foods as well as soft drinks. The study also highlighted that poverty was one of the main reasons behind high sugar consumption as it is an inexpensive source of calories. Also, sweetened beverages are an integral part of low income households in US due to that reason.

The team finally concluded that after the Special Supplemental Nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children was introduced in 2009, there was a drop in the obesity rates and if the model is accurate, the effect will been seen through the adulthood of the children.