Do you feel it’s harder for you to stay thin than it was for your grandparents at your age? You are right! Though we may be eating the same foods and exercising just as much as they did, we are about 10 percent heavier than people were in the 80’s. This may be due to changes in lifestyle and environmental factors that impact our BMI, or body mass index.

Recent research by York University’s Faculty of Health shows it’s more difficult to maintain the same weight at a certain age than it was for someone 2 or 3 decades ago. Even if you eat exactly the same macros (protein, fat, and carbs) and perform the same amount and type of exercise, you are likely to be heavier than they were at your age.

In fact, accounting for all the factors, the predicted BMI has risen 2.3 points between 1988 and 2006.

Jennifer Kuk, the study’s author, states “Our study results suggest that if you are 40 years old now, you’d have to eat even less and exercise more than if you were a 40-year-old in 1971 to prevent gaining weight. However, it also indicates there may be other specific changes contributing to the rise in obesity beyond just diet and exercise.”

Specific factors contributing to our increased BMI

In the past, we tended to look only to dietary and exercise habits when we considered our weight or BMI (body mass index).

However, managing your weight is much more complex than simply watching what you eat and working out regularly. Our BMI can be impacted by many factors such as:

Medication use

Environmental toxins

Genetics

Timing of meals

Stress level

Gut bacteria populations

Nighttime light exposure

While the study’s authors admit we need more research to determine exactly how these variables contribute to the changed BMI picture, they suggest three main factors:

Increased environmental toxins. Compared to 30 years ago, we are exposed to a higher level of environmental toxins such as pesticides, air pollution, heavy metals, flame retardants, plastics found in food storage containers, and more. These toxins place a heavy burden on the endocrine system and alter the hormonal processes which affect metabolism and weight management.

Increased use of prescription drugs. Since the 1970s, prescription drug use has risen dramatically. In the US, antidepressants are the most prescribed drugs for those between the ages of 18 and 44 and are also linked to weight gain.

Our gut microbiome has changed. The gut microbiome, which is comprised of the good and bad bacteria that naturally inhabit the digestive tract, has drastically changed since the 1980’s.

Americans eat differently than they did in the past. The products we eat now contain more antibiotics, pesticides, and other toxins; we consume more artificial sweeteners; and we eat more junk food. All of these factors may negatively impact the population of our gut bacteria.

A hot topic of research, the gut microbiome is now being connected to more and more aspects of health and disease. For example, some gut bacteria are linked with weight gain and obesity. In fact, doctors are even using fecal implantation — inserting gut bacteria from a healthy thin patient into the gut of an unhealthy obese patient — to reduce chronic obesity.

For ways to support a healthy microbiome, please contact our office. We can help you evaluate your microbiome health and show you how to improve it so you can maintain a healthy weight.

Nutritional Medicine is about creating new lifelong habits as much as it is about restoring function. By injecting the best the placebo effect has to offer into your daily diet and protocol, you are laying the groundwork for a lifetime of more positive outcomes.

Ask our office for more advice on how to make your health goals more achievable.

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