Hi there this is Monica Reinagle and you're listening to the nutrition

divas quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous.

Today I'm going to take a closer look at whether using air conditioning might somehow cause you to gain weight.

As it happens, the United States is having one of the hottest summers on record right now,

so it's a timely subject for us up here in the Northern Hemisphere.

However, I do realize that there are a lot of nutrition diva listeners in Australia, New Zealand,

and other places in South America, where it's currently winter.

And according to my listeners in Sydney, this winter has been a bear.

But for those of you shivering away down there in Australia, this episode may be more relevant than you think.

My friend Jose recently forwarded me an article suggesting that spending a lot of time in air conditioning could cause you to gain weight because your body won't have to work his heart to cool you down.

Apparently, some researchers found that in the southern United States

where the summers are very warm, obesity rates have increased as air conditioning

has become more widespread. If that were really true, Jose reasoned, we could lose weight, save money, and conserve energy just by turning off the air conditioner in the summer.

Jose is always one to look for the win-win situation.

Of course, there's always a chance that correlations,

such as the one that these researchers observed

between obesity rates and the number of people

with central air conditioning,

are just due to coincidence.

And I strongly suspect that this is one of those cases.

For one thing, it doesn't really make sense.

One reason we often say burning calories is because burning calories creates heat.

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