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People make all kinds of excuses for being a little overweight. But a new study suggests that tensions between our biological clocks and enforced working hours could be making us all pile on the pounds.
We humans are creatures with natural, biological tendencies to work and sleep at certain times—and we’re all slightly different. Researcher Till Roenneberg explains to Live Science:
“We are biological beings, and we have a biological clock, and what society – and I don’t mean the bad guys, I mean all of us – is ignoring is the biological clock. We think we can do whatever we want with the social clock.”
In fact, Roenneberg’s new study suggests that the problem is that we all favour waking and sleeping at subtly different times—something that isn’t accounted for by enforced business and social schedules. For those whose natural body clocks disagree most with their enforced routines, the result is extra weight.
Roenneberg and his colleagues studied data from more than 65,000 people, looking at their waking and sleep behavior during work and free days. The results, which are published in Current Biology, indicate that for each hour of sleep discrepancy between their natural preferences and enforced routine, people are 33 percent more likley to have a higher Body Mass Index. The likely explanation is that interference with natural waking hours messes with metabolism, in turn making us put on weight.
In days past, our lives were dictated by our body clocks, but nowadays that’s virtually impossible to achieve. Instead, Roenneberg suggests that the solution is to try and negotiate with your employer to make your working hours fit your natural rhythms more closely. Good luck with that. [Current Biology via Live Science]
Image by eflon under Creative Commons license
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I’m going to reiterate what I’ve said before: You put on weight because you eat too much and exercise too little. Things like the effect in the article above can contribute – but only if you already eat too much and move too little. If you consume the correct amount, it isn’t possible to put on weight, as all the energy from your food is used throughout the day leaving no surplus.
While what you say is correct, it’s over-simplifying it.
How do you know what’s too much food and too little movement? It’s different for everyone; there are lots of factors… lifestyle, work environment, what you eat, what exercise you do, metabolism etc. Lots of little things (Such as this), a bad working pattern (Shifts for example), stress, eating the wrong type of food (Convenience etc) can, in combination lead to problems… and none of that would be down to someone eating too much… just not doing the “right” things. The big problem here is that the right thing is not the same thing for everyone.
So yes, over-eating and lack of exercise are a problem… but I don’t think it’s fair to say, “that’s why everyone who is overweight, is overweight.”
There are indeed factors, which it is your job to take account of. I check my weight every couple of weeks. If it’s gone down, I increase the amount I’m eating a bit for the next week or so. If it’s gone up, I decrease it a bit. I know roughly how many calories I need per day and I adjust what I eat around that knowledge.
It isn’t difficult to do at all. I don’t make shopping lists, I spend less than half an hour a week in the supermarket, and I don’t plan my meals in advance. I just know roughly what the right amount of food is.
I refuse to accept that the negligible amount of time and effort it takes to balance your intake isn’t worth it, considering it could potentially add years to your life. Everyone has a set level of intake that will allow them to approximately maintain their weight. It isn’t at all difficult to figure out what it is. If you gain weight, it’s because you’ve got it wrong. The other factors, barring illness, are totally secondary to the quantity of calories you get through.
“I refuse to accept that the negligible amount of time and effort it takes to balance your intake isn’t worth it,”
Did I say it wasn’t?
No.
What I said, was that your sweeping statement wasn’t as straight forward as you said it was.
It would be great if everyone had it as easy as you obviously do; but life isn’t like that.
Yes, people can and need to do more, but to make such broad statements as “You put on weight because you eat too much and exercise too little.” is, as I’ve already said, over simplifying it. It borders on arrogance to assume that because it works for you, it should be the same for everyone else.
“You put on weight because you eat too much and exercise too little” isn’t disputable. We gain weight for two primary reasons: Increase in muscle mass, or increase in fat. We’re talking about the latter, and the body only produces that kind of extra fat when it has energy to spare. Since we only get energy from our food, you only have surplus energy because you’ve eaten more than you need to for your activity level. It’s a biological fact, not an opinion.
Other factors such as routine etc. affect how much, when, and what you eat, I’m not disputing that. But at the base of it all, the amount you eat dictates your weight.
| < Wall.
I might as well talk to it.
BadSheep, he is absolutely right. While your sleep patterns, and many other day to day activities/habits, may have an affect on your metabolism. If you’re fat, it’s because you eat too much. Blaming anything else is just pure denial. Alarm clocks do not cause obesity.
It’s almost as though these article titles are designed to help fat people feel slightly less guilty about being fat, building up an armoury of worthless excuses to put off going on a diet, doing more exercise, and to continue being a blob. If I get fat, and yes, I go through phases, the first thing I think, or tell other people is “Hmm, yeah, I’ve been eating too much junk food recently, maybe I should start running, and do more exercise.”
How much more simple can I put this?
SWEEPING. STATEMENTS. ARE. BOLLOCKS.
I’m not denying what is being said is true… what I am saying is SWEEPING. STATEMENTS. ARE. BOLLOCKS.
It would be great if we could say X is the absolute 100% cause of Y.
Life isn’t like that though; X may be the biggest cause of Y but Z, weather you like it or not has an impact.
You could put on weight if you ate the alarm clock.