Are you still fighting these confinement free? Having trouble adjusting to your summer clothes? If you’re an average person looking desperately while bathroom scale numbers keep rising, then you’re far from alone.
A new Cancer Research UK survey, published in May, suggested that if current trends continue, seven out of ten Britons will be classified as overweight or obese by 2040, and this is a problem, especially as we move to middle age and beyond.
And a recent study in Finland found that gaining pounds in middle age makes you old prematurely, as obese 55-year-olds have health problems that aren’t normally seen until they’re 70.
However, according to the 2019 England Health Survey, only 13% of people aged 16 to 24 are obese, compared to 33% of the 45-54 age group.
Weight reaches between 65 and 74 years, with 36% obesity and 39% overweight. After 75, things change slightly, with 45% overweight and 26% obese. This trend has catastrophic health effects, increasing the risk of cancer, type 2 diabetes, depression and dementia.
According to the 2019 England Health Survey, only 13% of people aged 16 to 24 are obese, compared to 33% of the 45-54 age group.
But why do we gain weight in the middle of life?
For years, the culprit was thought to be a slower metabolism, but new research suggests this is not the case.
Metabolism is the term for chemical processes that help us use the energy of food for vital functions such as breathing, pumping blood and feeding our organs.
There are two types of metabolic measurement. Your resting metabolic rate is the minimum amount of energy, or calories, needed to stay alive while you are at rest and fasting; while total energy expenditure is the combination of the resting metabolic rate plus the energy used for physical activity and digestion of food.
For sedentary adults, the resting metabolic rate accounts for about 50 to 70% of total energy use, ten to 15% digestion, and the remaining 20 to 30% of physical activity.
In an innovative study last year, scientists measured the metabolic rates of 6,400 people between the ages of eight days and 95 and found that metabolism does change with age, but not when one might think it does. .
The study revealed that our metabolism, the amount of calories we burn for our size, reaches its maximum when we are only 12 months old. After that, it slows down about 3 percent each year until we reach the age of 20, when it levels off to a new normal and stays “rock solid” until the 60s.
This means that a 50-year-old woman will burn calories just as effectively as a 20-year-old woman.
Professor John Speakman, a biologist at the Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, one of the authors of this study, published in the journal Science, told Good Health: “One amazing thing was that no there was a drop in the metabolic rate in middle age.
In an innovative study last year, scientists measured the metabolic rates of 6,400 people between the ages of eight days and 95 and found that metabolism does change with age, but not when one might think so.
“So if you’re experiencing a middle-aged spread, you can no longer blame it on a declining metabolic rate.
“Our metabolisms were thought to have accelerated during adolescence and dropped in half-life, but the study found that, in fact, the rate at which we burn calories remains remarkably stable.”
After age 60, our resting metabolic rate decreases by approximately 0.7% per year until, at age 90, our metabolism is 26% lower.
Fellow researcher Herman Pontzer, an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University in the United States, said: “Our article provides more support for the view that our metabolism is difficult to move. Our body follows a scheduled course. throughout our lives, and we can’t do much to change the energy burned in the day. ‘
Professor Speakman admits that, despite this, “many people struggle with weight at 40.” So what’s going on? The awkward truth seems to be that we gain weight because we consume too many calories, but we often don’t realize it.
“People are very poor when it comes to estimating their food intake, so they probably felt that their intake hasn’t changed,” says Professor Speakman.
“This myth constructed that the spread of middle age is due to decreased metabolism, possibly contributed by a reduction in physical activity and / or a change in the resting metabolic rate,” he explains. “But now we know that’s not true.”
This coincides with the findings of a study published last week in the journal Cell, which found that naturally thin people are no more active than the rest of the population: they simply eat less.
And the spread of middle age, it seems, is a simple process of accumulation. As Professor Speakman explains, “The amount you have to overeat every day to gain 20 kg (44 pounds) for 15 years is not much.”
The process begins, he says, when “we eat and drink more” as “we get richer and have more disposable income” and that “increased alcohol consumption could be another factor.”
What seems to encourage middle-aged weight gain, however, is menopause. Studies show that while menopause doesn’t actually increase overall weight, it does affect the amount of fat compared to a woman’s lean tissue and where that fat is stored.
In a five-year study of women between the ages of 46 and 57 (published in the journal Climacteric in 1999), menopause appeared to cause an increase in total body fat and especially abdominal (or visceral) fat.
Postmenopausal women have more visceral fat regardless of age, meaning menopause was the likely reason, according to Dr Sarah Berry, an associate professor of nutrition science at King’s College London and a leading nutrition scientist at the University of London. health science company ZOE.
Their findings (published in The Lancet) were based on a study of metabolism in 1,002 women who were premenopausal, perimenopausal, or who were actually going through menopause.
One reason may be that menopausal women ate more sugary foods, and according to Dr. Berry’s research, menopause changes the way the body manages sugar and fats. Previous studies have linked these changes to the drop in estrogen, a hormone that regulates fat distribution and insulin sensitivity. Genetics also play a role. Identical twins carry virtually the same weight as adults, even if they are separated at birth.
Dr Giles Yeo, a neuroscientist at Cambridge University who studies the links between obesity and genes, says genes can affect our appetite, meaning some of us feel more like eating fat.
He told Good Health that more than 1,000 genes are linked to obesity and that our brains need to be sensitive to how full we are, so any gene mutation that causes a slight insensitivity could make it harder to say no to temptation. .
So what can we do if we raise the pounds? Sally Norton, an NHS gastrointestinal surgeon, says her key recommendation is to eliminate “chemical foods” from our diets.
Ultra-processed foods such as mass-produced bread, ice cream, processed meat (even some vegan meat substitutes), french fries, some ready meals, cereals, cookies and soft drinks provide the 56, 8% of the calories in the UK diet.
A seminal study by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in 2019 found that people who ate mostly ultra-processed foods consumed an average of 500 calories a day more than those who ate a diet of unprocessed foods. In two weeks, those who ate ultra-processed foods gained 2 pounds, while those who ate natural foods lost 2 pounds.
Dr. Yeo says, “To lose weight, we need to eat less, and the easiest way to do that is to eat foods that make us feel fuller.”
Sleep is also important, says Sally Norton, as sleep regulates the balance of hormones that affect hunger. She recommends aiming for seven hours a night.
A study from King’s College London in 2016 found that sleep-deprived people ate 385 more calories a day. When they were forced to spend the day after less than five and a half hours of sleep, they were more tempted by unhealthy food.
Exercise like running can help, but you need to work hard, as studies suggest that to avoid weight gain in middle age, runners should increase their weekly distance by about 1.4 miles a year. So someone who runs ten miles a week at 30 has to do 24 miles a week for 40 to stay thin.
Meanwhile, American research shows that between one and two hours a week of weight training reduces the risk of obesity in the next six years by 30% in both men and women.
The bottom line is that if you want to keep the fund under control in middle age, stop blaming your metabolism.
Notes on historical cases
The old medical practices still today. This week: Using the arts as therapy
The ancient theater of Epidaurus in Greece was not just a place of entertainment. Epidaurus was surrounded by a shrine, where patients came to be healed, and part of this involved “catharsis,” defined as the experience of emotions in response to music, poetry, and tragedy. The idea that our emotions affect health is already well established. “We experience psychological pain in the same part of the brain that we feel physical pain, which triggers the release of endorphins,” explains Dr Robin Dunbar, a psychologist at Oxford University who led the study. He adds: “Endorphins are 30 times more potent than morphine.”