Why is it so easy to gain weight?
There are a lot of reasons for gaining weight but it’s often a combination of factors. The world we live in, and our experiences can make it harder to be a healthy weight.
In most countries around the world, more and more people are living with overweight or obesity. This does vary between countries and unfortunately, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia are among those most affected.
There is a general agreement that these changes have occurred because the world we live in has changed so much over the last century. We travel by car, we tend to do less active jobs, which means our lives can be less active. We also have a wider range of food and drink available to us at all times of the day, everywhere we go. These foods are often highly processed and are high in fat and sugar which means we consume more food and more energy. All these factors make it harder to be a healthy weight.
The world around us can affect how healthy we are and show various factors that can influence weight:
Credit: Cancer Research UK
For you, life has changed over the years. This may relate to a new job, having a family, changes in relationships and/or health conditions. These changes have influenced your life and may have altered what, when and how much you eat and drink as well as affecting your activity levels, you may for example be in a job where you are sitting at a desk and moving much less often. You may also find managing your weight has become harder as you age, or with certain life stages (e.g. menopause).
These changes to your life mean you may end up eating or drinking more, choosing higher-energy foods, or being less active and burning off less energy than previously. This has meant a gradual increase in weight over recent years and you might feel disappointed and frustrated by this, as the weight is no longer coming off like it used to.
You might not have needed to change what you eat, and you may not be someone who does a lot of exercise which means you may be worried about the changes you might need to make to get back to where you were. Your journey needs to have the right goals, targets and exciting solutions that work for you so you can build your confidence to make a change.
With the right changes for you, you can get back to where you were, and you can keep it off.
Here are some individual reasons for weight gain:
Continue your journey
Click on the next page Energy balance to continue your journey.
