Title: Obesity blamed on passive over-eating | The Independent | The Independent
Headings: Obesity blamed on passive over-eating
Obesity blamed on passive over-eating
Nation's health: Diet and exercise initiative is launched as the Army wages its own battle against flabby soldiers

Content: Obesity blamed on passive over-eating | The Independent | The Independent







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Obesity blamed on passive over-eating
Nation's health: Diet and exercise initiative is launched as the Army wages its own battle against flabby soldiers
Liz Hunt Health Editor
Monday 03 June 1996 23:02
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Scientists have coined a new phrase to describe the consumption of fat- laden foods which are partially to blame for the epidemic of obesity in Britain and other Western countries - passive over-eating. Failed serial dieters who blame their weight problem on their genes, a slow metabolism or being "big boned", will no doubt gleefully adopt the concept, suggesting as it does that it is not their fault they are fat. But passive over-eating, unlike passive smoking, offers no excuse for the victim, according to Dr Andrew Prentice of the Medical Research Council's Dunn Nutrition Centre in Cambridge. A low-fat diet and exercise remain the key to weight loss. Speaking at the launch of a new healthy lifestyle initiative by the food and drink industry yesterday, Dr Prentice said there had been a 50 per cent increase in the fat to carbohydrate ratio in the national diet since the 1960s. " Food intake has been declining from its peak in the mid-1960s, so how is it that we have a burgeoning increase in obesity?" he asked. "In part the reason is that although we are consuming a similar [or decreased] bulk of food there are many more calories per gram. It is passive over- eating - we don't necessarily want to eat more ... but neither we nor our bodies are recognising [the extra calories] and reducing the quantity of food accordingly."