Fat? Study Says It’s Not The Junk Food

Are you sitting down? A new study from researchers at Cornell claims that for all but the most overweight and underweight people, the consumption of soda, candy and fast food showed no correlation to BMI. A Cornell news release reports that the findings upend the seemingly self-evident conclusion that consuming unhealthy foods is the cause of high rates of obesity. According to researcher David Just, previous studies reporting a positive correlation between indulgent foods and weight status at the population level failed to take into account the distorting effects from the roughly five percent of people who are either chronically underweight or morbidly obese. For the rest of the 95 percent of the population, the consumption of those indulgent foods and beverages showed no significant difference between the habits of healthy weight and overweight individuals. “Simply put, just because those things can lead you to get fat doesn’t mean that’s what is making us fat,” says Just. “By targeting just these vilified foods, we are creating policies that are not just highly ineffective, but may be self-defeating as it distracts from the real underlying causes of obesity.” The study blames the increasing rates of obesity on “other things,” like the likelihood that you’re sitting down while reading this.