"So it's perhaps surprising that, in a debate that has often focused on foods alone, actual levels of caloric intake among the young haven't appreciably changed over the last twenty years." -Then-FDA Commissioner Dr. Mark McClellan, 2003
"Television. Cars. Computers. Remote controls. Elevators. Escalators. E-mail. Leaf-blowers. Golf carts. Automatic doors. Automatic windows. Automatic toilet-flushers. It all adds up. Little by little, we're turning into a nation of couch potatoes. And we're paying a price for it. Inactive people have a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, obesity, and osteoporosis … Getting off the couch doesn't just ward off life-threatening illness. It may also help you function like you're 20 years younger, cut your odds of ending up in a nursing home, help you sleep better, ward off colds, and improve your outlook on life."
-Nutrition Action HealthLetter, newsletter of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, 1999
"The lack of evidence of a general increase in energy [food] intake among youths despite an increase in the prevalence of overweight suggests that physical inactivity is a major public health challenge in this age group."
-American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2000
"These results suggest that habitual activity plays an important role in weight gain, with no parallel evidence that energy intake had a similar role … The composite findings from NGHS so far indicate that the drastic decline in habitual activity during adolescence might be a major factor in the doubling of the rate of obesity development in the USA in the past two decades, since no concomitant increase in energy intake was apparent."
-Lancet, 2005
"The obesity epidemic is driven, in my view, more by decreases in average daily energy expenditure than by increases in average daily energy intake. Unfortunately we do not have data on average daily energy expenditure or on changes in this variable, and the data we have on average daily energy intake are questionable. Therefore the fundamental cause of the increases in obesity prevalence observed over the past several years cannot be determined."
-Steven Blair, P.E.D., Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research, 2005
"Of the 7 dietary and physical activity variables examined in this cross-sectional study, insufficient vigorous physical activity was the only risk factor for higher body mass index for adolescent boys and girls … Interestingly, in this group of adolescents, increased energy intake (higher kilojoules) was related to decreased overweight status. At first, this finding appears contradictory. However, given the increasing levels of vigorous activity among this group, it is likely that they expend greater amounts of energy, creating a favorable energy balance."
-Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, 2004
"Contrary to hypotheses, elevated intake of high-fat foods, binge eating, and exercise did not predict obesity onset."
-Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 2005
"A reduction in energy expenditure must be the main determinant of the current epidemic of obesity." [Note: this study also found that people who exercise the most had a 57 percent lower chance of being obese.]
-International Journal of Obesity, 1995
"Inactivity is a major cause of obesity in the United States. In fact, inactivity might be a far more significant factor in the development of obesity than overeating."
-The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, 2004
"It is often assumed that the increase in pediatric obesity has occurred because of an increase in caloric intake. However, the data do not substantiate this."
-Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2004
"In fact, several investigators report that the calorie intake (defined in absolute or weight-adjusted units) of obese persons is not greater and may be less than the intake of nonobese persons. Body weight, body fat, and lean body mass were also not associated with caloric intake in our study of obese men … [W]e conclude that the nonsignificant correlations between obesity measures and total caloric intake suggests that variations in the level of obesity among these sedentary overweight men cannot be directly related to caloric consumption and may reflect sedentary lifestyle."
-American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1988
"… there has been no relationship between either total energy intake or fat consumption and the prevalence of clinical obesity over the last 60 years, whilst proxy measures of physical inactivity (TV viewing and car ownership) are closely related."
-British Medical Bulletin, 1997
"Evidence suggests that modern inactive lifestyles are at least as important as diet in the aetiology [origin] of obesity and possibly represents the dominant factor."
-British Medical Journal, 1995
"… those who were obese and reported the least physical activity had the lowest caloric intake."
-American Journal of Preventative Medicine, 2003
"Results from this study show that adiposity was not related to either absolute or relative energy intake for males and only to absolute energy intake for females; this relationship disappeared when consumption was expressed relative to body weight or lean body mass. Drean et al. similarly found no relationship between energy intake and body fat in middle-aged men. Studies in the German Democratic Republic and from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey that used large databases, indicate that normal-weight and overweight persons ingest about the same number of joules."
-American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1990
"Energy intakes per person were [about] 7% lower in 1994 than in 1977-78."
-American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2000
"Dietary factors were not associated with BMI across the three study years … Moreover, there was no significant correlation between time spent watching television and the percentage of calories consumed from fat in any of the three observation years."
-International Journal of Obesity, 2005
"… from 1980 through 2000, obesity increased 10 percent, physical activity decreased 13 percent and caloric intake rose 1 percent among U.S. adolescents."
-Dr. Lisa Sutherland, University of North Carolina, 2003
"… about 40 percent of the recent growth in weight seems to be due to agricultural innovations that have lowered food prices, while 60 percent may be due to demand factors such as declining physical activity from technological changes in home and market production … [T]his secular growth in weight has been accompanied by only modest gains in calorie consumption. Indeed, the immediate postwar period witnessed substantial growth in weight and declining consumption of calories."
-National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004
"After 14 years of working, those in the least sedentary occupations have about 3.5 units of BMI less than those in the most sedentary ones."
-Harvard Institute of Economic Research, 2003
