Sedentary lifestyle cause of obesity

A new study in US shows that in the past 20 years there has been a sharp decrease in physical exercise and an increase in average body mass index (BMI), while caloric intake has remained steady. Investigators theorised that a drop in leisure-time physical activity, especially among young women, may be responsible for the upward trend in obesity rates. By analysing National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data from the last 20 years, researchers from Stanford University discovered that the number of US adult women who reported no physical activity jumped from 19.1 per cent in 1994 to 51.7 per cent in 2010.