5 Foods That Make You Fat and 5 Foods That Don't

Harvard Researchers Identify Foods
Linked With Weight Gain Over Time,
Foods Linked With Less Weight Gain
-- Avoiding weight gain as you age
isn't impossible, after all.

If you yearn to be among those who sail through
the years without picking up a pound for each
birthday, Harvard doctors have a game plan for
you. And it goes far beyond the old "eat less,
exercise more" mantra.
Reducing your intake of specific foods, sleeping 6
to 8 hours nightly, getting some exercise, and
turning off the TV all predicted less weight gain
with time, they found.

They also found five foods strongly linked with
weight gain and five others linked with less than
average weight gain.

''The message here is that the type and quality of
food and beverage one eats are incredibly
important," says researcher Dariush Mozaffarian,
MD, DrPH, associate professor of medicine and
epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health,
Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard
Medical School.

The new research, he says, ''shows how multiple
lifestyle factors, including diet, were related to
long-term weight gain."
The study appears in the New England Journal of
Medicine.

Avoiding Weight Gain: Study Details

The researchers wanted to focus on what leads to
long-term weight gain and why the average adult
gains about a pound a year.
They tracked 120,000 participants in three
studies, the Nurses' Health Study, the Nurses'
Health Study II, and the Health Professionals
Follow-up Study. Every four years, they evaluated
the links between changes in lifestyle habits and
weight.

On average, the study participants gained an
average of 3.35 pounds over each four-year
period. That added up to nearly 17 pounds after
20 years. At the start of the three studies, the
men and women's average ages were 37, 50, and
52.

5 Foods That Make You Fat and 5 That Don't

When the researchers looked more closely, they
found five foods associated with the greatest
weight gain over the study period:
1. Potato chips
2. Other potatoes
3. Sugar-sweetened beverages
4. Unprocessed red meats
5. Processed meats

They also found five foods linked with less gain
and even weight loss:
1. Vegetables
2. Whole grains
3. Fruits
4. Nuts
5. Yogurt

Deciphering the Findings

"There were huge differences in four-year weight
gains based on what people did," he says. "The
quantity of fat in the food didn't seem to be
strongly related to weight gain." For instance, no
differences were seen for low-fat or skim milk
compared to whole-fat milk.
Rather, he says, focusing on the quality of food --
not simply total calories, or fat grams, or grams of
carbohydrates -- seems most important in
avoiding weight gain.

They write: "A habitual energy imbalance of about
50 to 100 kilocalories per day may be sufficient to
cause the gradual weight gain seen in most
persons."

Yogurt was perhaps the biggest surprise on the
list of foods linked with less weight gain,
Mozaffarian says. The researchers aren't sure why.

They cite some other research finding that
changes in gut bacteria from eating yogurt may
help in weight control. Or those who eat yogurt
may have other healthy habits.