Hi everybody this is Monica Reinagle. Welcome to the nutrition

Divas quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous. Today I'm

going to be talking about some research that suggests that our obesity problem may have to do not with what we eat, but chemicals in our environment.

A small but growing number of researchers believe that environmental pollutants and industrial chemicals are to blame for the obesity epidemic.

This of course bucks the conventional wisdom that our increasing girth is simply

the result of eating too much and exercising too little. Now for those who have struggled to

lose weight according to the standard prescription which is eat less move more

this latest theory offers a sort of vindication if not a ready solution but what's the evidence to

support the idea that chemicals are the true cause of our ever expanding

wastelines?

It's not enough to say that the rise in obesity correlates to the increasing use of industrial

chemicals.

This may be true, but the rise in obesity correlates to a lot of things.

It also correlates, for example, to a dramatic increase in the sale of organic produce and

other products.

But there is some additional evidence.

Bruce Blumberg, a researcher at the University of California in Irvine, researches the effects

of chemicals that are widely used in plastics and pesticides.

He's found that rats that are exposed to these chemicals have more and bigger fat cells

than rats that aren't, even though both groups of rats eat the same diet.

Bloomberg believes that the presence of these chemicals, he calls them obeseogens

in our environment, could explain why we've gotten so much fatter.

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