| BME Humor for
March 10th
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| News Brief |
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| Abstract |
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| Is eating fast food with heavy drinking, smoking, and no exercise a risk factor for obesity? How dumb are we? |
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| Baker J, Ponch P, Getraer J. |
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OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate social and dietary factors associated with obesity.
METHODS: Non-parametric tests, multiple linear regression models and correspondence factorial analysis (CFA) were used to estimate the association of the various factors with overweight and obesity. Subjects: A total of 1200 subjects (500 women, 500 men, 100 girls, and 100 boys), aged 5-77 years, were recruited at random. 600 subjects were chosen at random to smoke one pack of cigarettes a day, eat fast food with a can of beer for lunch and dinner, and maneuver in wheelchairs for 4 months. The other 600 lived normal lives, meaning they spent 80% of their waking hours sitting, exercised and drank alcohol on occasion, and ate processed food every other day. About 44% of this normal group smoked three cigarettes a day, whereas the other 56% did not smoke at all.
RESULTS: All 600 experimental cases became clinically obese in the first month of trials. By month three, 412 cases exhibited symptoms of diabetes and liver failure which included edema and jaundice of the eyes, face, and hands. Only 37% of cases were alive at the conclusion of month four. Obesity was associated with age, alcohol consumption, dietary habits, and tobacco use in both genders, as well as reproductive factors in women. A few dietary factors were identified (high fat intake and low intake of carbohydrates and nutrition). The CFA further investigated the association of lifestyle factors, giving significant weight to sedentary behavior for obese men and women.
CONCLUSIONS: Sedentary, nutritionally-deprived users of tobacco and alcohol develop symptoms of obesity. DISCUSSION: People who habitually drink, smoke, eat foods low in nutrition, and avoid exercise, put themselves at high risk for developing obesity and diabetes followed by cirrhosis and death. Before going on a diet, at-risk individuals should first quit smoking and drinking, eat fruits and vegetables, and exercise on a regular basis. |
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| Source: Public Health Basics Journal. 2004 Mar;6(4):632-35. |
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