Saturday, October 10, 2009

What Is Causing Your Fatness?

By Katherine Crawford M.S.

Top scientists believe that weight gain is being caused by many things, there is no single enemy here. Therefore, your struggles with body fat is most likely caused by a variety of negative variables.

Now in an earnest attempt to figure all of this out, researchers around the globe have come up with many theories for the root cause of weight gain. And although these theories shouldn't be taken as final explanations, they do provide insights as to why you may be gaining weight.

Thus, here are some explanations of excess weight gain:

1. Lipoprotein lipase. Dietary fat gets shoved into fat cells by lipoprotein lipase. According to this theory, those with too much body fat have too much lipoprotein lipase. And those with little body fat have less.

2. Sheer number of fat cells. Your fat cells can increase in size, but they can also replicate and increase in number. Proponents of this idea believe that overweight individuals have a higher number of fat cells and therefore constantly struggle with losing weight.

3. The idea of a set-point. Proponents of this theory believe that your body tries very hard to maintain a certain weight and any effort on your part to change it results in very specific metabolic compensation. So the harder you try to restrict calories, the harder your body tries to slow down your metabolism.

4. More fat burning fat. Not all fat is greedy. In fact, brown fat actively seeks out body fat to be burned as heat. And this theory claims that people who are leaner have more brown fat while people who are fatter have less.

5. Reduced thermic effect. Proponents of this theory believe that overweight people get less of a thermic effect from food right after eating. They believe that over time this adds up and can lead to excess weight gain.

The causes of body fatness are many and it's very hard to point the finger at any single cause. Having said that, knowing the possible mechanisms that could potentially be causing your weight gain doesn't hurt. The take home point here is to look at weight gain from many points of view.

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