Obesity ‘Virus’ Spreads Like Common Cold, Scientists Say
Obesity can be “caught” as easily as a common cold from other people’s coughs, sneezes and dirty hands, scientists said Monday. The condition has been linked to a highly-infectious virus which causes sniffles and sore throats.
Nikhil Dhurandhar, an associate professor at The Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in Baton Rouge, La., said the virus, known as AD-36, infects the lungs then whisks around the body, forcing fat cells to multiply and also causing sore throats.
“When this virus goes to fat tissue it replicates, making more copies of itself and in the process increases the number of new fat cells, which may explain why the fat tissue expands and why people get fat when they are infected with this virus,” Dhurandhar said.
—Monday, Jan. 26, 2009 | FoxNews.com—
Before the “fat people are lazy and looking for excuses” posse shows up, just let me say… Hold your horses, I just have to get this out: I am not making excuses or looking for excuses! And, I did not post this as an excuse for admittedly spending too many years being obese. The fact that there might be a virus linked to obesity is simply ground-breaking (to me). I mean, what the? Why didn’t anybody tell me?
Yes, of course, I acknowledge that I still would have needed to diet and exercise, watch what I eat, be active and healthy, and blah, blah, blah to avoid getting fat. But at least I could have been fighting against a disease or an infection and not some amorphous conception of my own lack of will-power and self-control.
How much easier would it have been to say, “Sorry, grandma/auntie/big ma, I can’t have that fifteenth piece of cake. You know I have this virus?” Rather than having to try and tell the world’s original food-pushas, “I’m trying to watch my weight.” I have a pretty good and supportive family. They would have gone around whispering to each other “you know baby-girl has that virus. Cut up some apples and put out a salad.”
My doctors might have said, “You are aware you had a virus that predisposes you to obesity so you must be careful”; instead of just weighing me in and out and rarely saying anything at all even though I clearly needed to get it together. To them already it was hopeless. I suppose it was to me too.
And, most importantly, perhaps I would have thought differently and acted differently. I may have understood that with such a myriad of contributing factors possible (no matter how small), the best I could have done was to focus on what I personally could do. I know, crazy logic, but it makes sense to me 
Posted on January 27th, 2009 by fat2fit
Filed under: Miscellaneous Musings | No Comments »
Last year I lost a whopping 75 pounds. In less than 9 months, I went from a woman’s size 20/22 to a petite size 8. I gained a whole new confidence and the energy to keep up with friends and family. And a great new wardrobe too! I still have about 30 to go, maybe 40 but I’d be happy with 30. Truth be told, I’m pretty happy right now but I know that my weight still puts my BMI at obese/overweight. For once in my adult life, I’d like to be “normal” and so I’ve decided to push ahead and lose this last bit.