WHY DO YOU PUT ON EXCESS WEIGHT?

The same two variables that together determine whether you will grow up well-adjusted or deviant, whether you become a hotshot lawyer or a hole-in-the-wall artist. In other words, your heredity and your environment Heredity does not destine you to be fat. Not in the way that genes destine you to have brown eyes or black. But a family history of obesity does increase your chances of becoming obese by about 25 to 30 per cent. In 1994, researchers isolated a gene that controls the hormonal signal for fullness; other genes are also believed to be involved in the development of obesity. Specifically, your genes are thought to determine such things as the number of fat cells you're born with, whether most of your middle-age spread will end up on your abdomen or on your hips, and what is known as your basal metabolic rate or BMR, mat is, the amount of calories used by your body to maintain itself while at rest (in such vital functions as breathing, heart beat and temperature control, that continue even while you sleep). BMR varies widely among people — some of as barn more calories, even while we're sedentary, than others. In general, if your resting metabolic rate is high, yon may find that yon can eat a lot, exercise little and still not gain weight. Conversely, if your BMR is low, you may eat in moderation, be fairly active, and still put on weight. Age also affects BMR.

Starting in your 30s, you lose muscle gradually and your resting metabolic rate starts to slow—which is why you tend to put on weight more easily after this age. Among the environmental factors at work are the sedentary lifestyle that's a growing affliction of twentieth-century existence, the easy access to high-fat foods, social and cultural influences such as TV-time snacking, the executive brunch, pub-crawling, and regular partying as an occupational requisite.

Men seem to be luckier than women in that most of them can eat more of everything without putting on weight as easily. One explanation is that men have more muscle and less fat than women. Muscle burns more energy than fat and it continues to bum calories even during rest giving men a higher BMR than women..

You'll often find obesity blamed on "glandular problems", of which hypothyroidism seems to be the favourite whipping boy. In fact, however, an under-active thyroid is only an occasional, not a frequent, culprit in obesity.

Even less frequently to blame are conditions such as a tumour of the adrenal gland, Willi-Praeder syndrome and Cushing's syndrome that may also pre-dispose you to weight gain. Overall, less than 5 per cent of all cases of obesity can be traced to a hormonal imbalance or a metabolic disorder.

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