越減越肥 多數女性的傷心減肥史

It is what failed dieters have long suspected: fat people really can't keep the weight off.

減肥失敗的人們早就懷疑：胖人真的減不了肥。

Scientists have confirmed that the majority of overweight people who try to lose weight either by cutting calories or exercising will return to their former size.

科學家日前證實，絕大多數嘗試節食或運動減肥的肥胖人羣體重都會反彈。

Fewer than 10 percent of the 12million Britons who go on a dieteach year succeed in losing significant amounts of weight and most of those who do put it all back on again within a year.

在英國每年的1200萬節食減肥人羣中，只有不到10%能成功減去大量體重，而其中絕大多數人會在一年內反彈。

The study of 25,000 people provides further evidence of the prevalence of ‘yo-yo dieting’ where slimmersget into a cycle of losing weight and regaining it.

該研究進一步印證了“溜溜球節食效應”的流行，它是指減肥者陷入反覆減肥的惡性循環。共有2.5萬人參與了此項調查。

The scientists, from the Medical Research Council’s National Survey of Health and Development, have concluded it is better to avoid getting fat in the first place.

醫學研究理事會國家衛生與發展調查機構的科學家得出結論，最好從開始就不要長胖。

They followed 5,362 men and women from their birth in 1946 and 20,000 from birth in 1958, measuring their weight and blood pressure and assessing their lifestyles. The researchers found both groups began gaining weight in the 1980s and have steadily increased in size ever since.

受訪者中有5362人於1946年出生，另有兩萬人於1958年出生，研究人員自其出生後就開始跟蹤調查，包括測量體重、血壓，並評估他們的生活方式。研究發現，兩組人羣都在20世紀80年代開始增重，且此後體重持續增加。

Dr Rebecca Hardy, the council’s programme leader on body size, said: ‘Once people become overweight, they continue relentlessly upwards. They hardly ever go back down.

理事會體型研究項目負責人麗貝卡 哈代博士說：“人們一旦超重，就會不可收拾地胖下去。很難瘦回來。”

‘A few lose weight but very few get back to normal. The best policy is to prevent people becoming overweight.

“有些人可以減掉一些體重，但很少有人減到正常。最好的辦法就是從開始就不要長胖。”

‘For men [weight] goes up steadily through life. For women it starts slowly and accelerates in the mid-thirties.’

“對男性而言，年齡越大體重越高。而女性體重則是一開始增長較慢，到35歲，體重才加速增長。”

But the study’s findings do not mean dieting is pointless, as eating less and taking more exercise can increase fitness and lower blood pressure.

但該研究並不意味着減肥無用，因爲少吃多運動能促進健康，並降低血壓。