Debt May Cause Women To Be Obese

Ladies, having trouble paying your bills? Having trouble losing weight? According to a recent study out from Economics and Human Biology, these difficulties may be linked.

According to the study, there is significant "suggestive evidence" that difficulty paying bills may be an underlying cause of obesity for women.

The study set out to determine if the correlation between household debt and poor health was merely a coincidence, or if financial hardship actually leads to obesity. The researchers took samples from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health of individuals between the ages of 18 and 28 and divided the data by gender. While the following analysis did not achieve what the researcher set out to do, they found something very interesting instead.

According to the study's concluding statements, while the connection between poor health and financial hardship could not be as easily explained as researchers thought, evidence that growing debt in women led to unhealthy weight gain was discovered.

The evidence indicates that women who have experienced difficulties paying household bills like rent or utilities are more likely to be obese than their male counterparts facing the same troubles. The study's lead author, Susan Averett, says that this is promising lead, and deserves further research.

Still, you wouldn't be crazy to have your doubts. The study did not reach its original goal because the data collected could be skewed by too many outside factors per individual, such as intelligence, medical conditions, and even where the adults in question lived. It is very likely the data correlating weight gain in women to increasing debt was influenced by similar factors.

Still, there is a chance Averett isn't very far off the mark. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute does list a stressful environment, such a growing debt, as one of the underlying causes of obesity. Whether women are more susceptible to that cause than men remains to be seen.

The study was published in the journal Economics & Human Biology on December 19.