Fat Perfume: The Link Between Chemicals and Obesity

I used to work with gastric bypass surgery patients. That was back when I was making my living as a clinical psychologist, in case you were wondering why someone who sells green beauty products winds up in a bariatric surgery program. Anyway, it was while I was studying obesity that I first learned of the potential link between endocrine-disrupting chemicals and obesity. I knew from the countless hours I spent talking with my patients that diet and exercise were only part of the equation. After all, when more than half the general population is suffering from the same thing, it is by definition no longer an individual problem. It has to be something in the environment, whether it's a cultural shift, the food supply, ubiquitous chemicals or, as I believe it to be, a combination of all of the above.

For the past 3 years now, I have voiced these opinions whenever and wherever I had the opportunity, but usually they were met with skepticism and, at times, anger. Blaming fat people for being fat is a popular approach to this epidemic. And yet, research continues to emerge linking obesity to a number of other factors unrelated to laziness and gluttony.

Sharon Begley recently published a Newsweek article outlining the connection between fat and chemicals they are calling obesogens - in other words, chemicals that mimic estrogen and, consequently, cause an increase in fat cell production (estrogen is stored in fat cells). Anyway, I'll let her explain it. And you are pregnant, or planning to get pregnant any time in the future, this should be required reading. It's way more valuable than anything I read in What to Expect When You're Expecting.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/215179?tid=relatedcl