From an online Article in ONEARTH

So, what else besides eating too much, and exercising too little can make you fat? What else IS there?

Laura Fraser, San Francisco-based journalist, states, “This month’s issue of Obesity Reviews features an extensive look at the accumulating body of research linking the environment with obesity.”

The impacts of pollution, and exposure to synthetic chemicals, are now recognized as influencing the hormonal regulatory system, disrupting “our bodies’ delicate weight balance.”

In 2002, Paula Baillie-Hamilton, an expert on metabolism and environmental toxins at Stirling University in Scotland, discussed the link between the obesity epidemic and the increase in the chemicals in our lives. “Overlooked in the obesity debate,” she wrote in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, “is that the earth’s environment has changed significantly during the last few decades because of the exponential production and usage of synthetic organic and inorganic chemicals.”

We’ve heard their names before, these chemicals that Baillie-Hamilton calls, “chemical calories” and others call “obesogens'” including Bisphenol A, phthalates, PCBs, persistent organic pollutants such as DDE, a breakdown product of the insecticide DDT, and pesticides containing tin compounds called organotins. We’ve learned that these endocrine disruptors have been linked to early puberty, impaired immune function, different types of cancer, birth deformities, and other diseases. Now obesity and metabolism are on that list.

Hormones directly impact your metabolism, appetite, and the number and size of fat cells you have, and organic pollutants “derail the hormonal mechanisms that control weight,” so you crave more food and cannot burn off the calories, and it is worse for children – so buying fresh foods and avoiding plastic packaging can have a significant impact on your health.