1. Managing Body Composition  People respond at different rates and magnitudes with respect to feeding and exercise.

2. Managing Body Composition  Environmental influences are most important because they are the only ones we can control.  You can no longer find many jobs that require a lot of physical activity.

3. Managing Body Composition Main factors contributing to the problem:  Transportation  Advertising  Fast food  Public Attitudes

4. Managing Body Composition  As you lose weight, your metabolism gets more efficient and it becomes harder to maintain the rate of weight loss.

5. Diets  The long term effectiveness is not convincing.  Most work for the short term.

6. Diets Months of Treatment Diet Alone Diet, Behavior Mod, Exercise Body Wt

7. Successful Treatment  Behavior change is the only important outcome.  Don’t focus on weight, focus on behavior.

8. What Works!  Extended therapy contacts  Multi-component programs that include ongoing therapy.  Home-based exercise combined with on-going therapy.  Social support is key.

9. Preventing Obesity  The level of heritability of obesity or body fat is only moderate.  Most intermediate phenotypes that can be defined as determinants of body fat content are also characterized by low to moderate levels of heritability.

10. Preventing Obesity  The prevalence of overweight and obesity has been steadily increasing over the last 50 years – a period of time that is too short to be caused by changes in the frequency genes or susceptibility genes.

11. Preventing Obesity  Eating regular and healthy meals.  Avoiding high caloric density snacks.  Drinking water instead of energy- containing beverages.  Keeping dietary fat at about 30% of calories.

12. Preventing Obesity  Cutting down on TV viewing time.  Walking more.  Participating more in physical activity and other energy-consuming leisure activities.