Flab Flimflam

Far be it from me to question science. After all, I frequently cite scientific studies published in academic journals as proof that what I’m putting forward is credible. But there’s a big part of me that doesn’t buy into a study aired on BBC television earlier this week that purportedly explains why so many people in the United Kingdom – one in three, in fact, with projections indicating Britons will take the obesity crown from the Americans in a few years’ time – are obese.

Researchers from Louisiana’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center say that a number of people living today are victims of a so-called “obesity bug,” something that people can actually catch, as if it were the common cold. Once someone catches this airborne germ that scientists refer to as the adenovirus, or AD-36, fat cells multiply at a prodigious rate.

If this sounds like a tongue-in-cheek report, I assure you, it isn’t. Not when researchers point to various studies done on chickens and rodents that were injected with AD-36, and all of them put on weight at a faster clip than other groups not injected with the fat germ (the groups were fed the same diet).

This study has since been done on humans, and the researchers say that a significant percentage of those studied – 33 percent – were infected with AD-36 at some point in their lives and were obese. At the same time, though, other men and women involved in the study who were quite lean were also infected with the adenovirus (11 percent).

Now, I’m not about to insinuate that these researchers manufactured their results out of whole cloth or that there’s absolutely no foundation upon which to believe their results. At the same time, though, this study basically excuses the central reasons why obesity is a pox on society today: poor diet and a lack of exercise.

I’m sure there are people who have been afflicted by this fat bug, but I can guarantee you that that number is dwarfed by the number of people who are overweight simply because of their fast-food lifestyles.

Speaking of fast food, have you heard about the enormous profits made by fast food leviathan McDonald’s in 2008? Compared to 2007, profits for the Home of the Big Mac jumped an astounding 80 percent, despite – or perhaps because of – the global recession and downturn in jobs. In Europe alone, sales increased almost 10 percent, as the average number of customers served per day last year totaled approximately 58 million! In no region of the world – not in Africa, the Middle East, Asia or the Western Hemisphere – did sales decrease.

“I’m lovin’ it,” indeed.

All that said, you tell me: Does Britain’s obesity problem have more to do with a flu-like bug that even thin people get, or might it have something to do with the 80 percent rise in profits at businesses known for “supersizing” its clientele?

Again, you make the call.

Sources
Breitbart.com
Daily Express