Potato chips had the highest association with weight gain in one study. Photo by stu_spivack/Flickr.com
The adage "Eat less, exercise more" generally works, but new research suggests that half the fight to stay slim lies in long-term lifestyle changes and eating the right foods.
One study in The New England Journal of Medicine reports that avoiding fattening foods and sugar-heavy beverages reduces weight gain, yet some foods are far better at keeping the pounds off.
To better understand the relationships among lifestyles, food and weight, the team approached the problem in reverse. Rather than studying weight loss in overweight or obese individuals, scientists looked at how certain activities and diet affected weight gain over several years.
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Using data tracking 120,877 healthy U.S. men and women for 12 and 20 years, researchers surveyed lifestyle variables such as exercise, TV time, sleep and alcohol use. Because smoking affects weight loss and gain, scientists considered it a variable likely to skew results. They also surveyed the types of foods consumed, but could not always know portion sizes.
On average, participants gained 3.3 pounds every four years, but there was definitely individual variation.
The obvious: Those gaining the least amount of weight also received six to eight hours of sleep, exercised, consumed less alcohol, watched less TV and ate healthier foods. On the other hand, weight gain was most strongly associated with the intake of potato chips, potato products, sweetened beverages, sweets, and processed and unprocessed red meats.
The less obvious: Participants also gained more weight from avoiding veggies, fruits, whole grains, nuts, and yogurts. They also discovered that participants who ate more of these healthier foods gained less weight over time. True, the majority of these foods have fewer calories, so eating them instead of other high-calorie choices would do the trick.
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But for participants who regularly ate whole-fat dairy products and nuts, both rich in calories, there was still an added benefit. Why?
The team thinks there's more to it. Perhaps hunger, fullness and how the body absorbs and metabolizes nutrients in food matters more than we think.
Another finding hints at the idea that diet is more complex than we think by showing that low-calorie foods might backfire during weight loss. While conducting experiments using the low-calorie food substitute Olestra in potato chips, researchers found the substitute resulted in weight gain when consumed with other high-fat foods in mice.
It seems the responses triggered while anticipating low-calorie foods -- seeing, smelling, tasting them -- still jumpstart the same metabolic processes needed to digest high-fat foods. Strangely, the body can be tricked into thinking it's getting more calories than it actually is.
Tags: Health, Healthy Foods
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