Good question, Baldman. Smiles, moves on.

Probably have to take into account that those people (generally) tend to spend more time being active outdoors. You'd have to compare people from the cold/warm climates that have similar exercise/diet patterns to get the most accurate picture.

um... they are. Mississippi? Louisana? they are two of the fattest states in the US.

Because in warmer climates you have to wear less clothing, and who wants to wear hardly any clothing when obese?

@adidaswmmng - the reason is simple. The overwhelming majority of the population of Mississippi and Louisiana are poor, residing in the lower socioeconomic classes. They can typically only afford cheap, highly processed and low nutritious food that are very difficult for the body to properly digest. This results in the rampant obesity and general unhealthiness.

Last time I checked a sterotypical Eskimo was overweight. In school we were taught that the added layers of fat allowed for the human body to remain warmer in the colder climates that they lived in. Was this all a lie! If they lied about this, did they lie about everything else? I don't know if I can continue my day....

psychofan - spoken like a true northerner. It's not a "socioeconomic class" issue. It's a style of cooking. If you've ever been down here, you'd know that southern and creole cooking is full of fat and grease. EVERYTHING is fried. Fried chicken, fried green beans, fried tomatoes. All of those things just mentioned are perfectly healthy until you cook it in the southern way. And if it's not fried (and even if it is), it's loaded up with butter and/or cream. A favorite breakfast is biscuits with sausage gravy. So, lets not make this a class issue. If we wanted to eat a steamed piece of chicken infused with patchouli we would, only it tastes like crap to us.

It's likely a combination of all of the above - Southern food is fried everything, Southerners aren't able to walk places as much because their cities are designed for cars not walking, plus you can only take off so much clothing in the heat versus bundling up in the cold, and then we get to the cold itself - it's a basic fact of physics that the heat load (and therefore calories burned) is greater in cold air than warmer, and for that matter in water versus air. Add all this up, and it explains why Southerners are fatter overall than Northerners, regardless of color, socioeconomic class etc.

rcampb17--spoken like a true southerncentric who refuses to listen to others. Yes, the food is fried--that's part of what makes it "processed" dear. Frying is a quick way to cook things, and it also makes food that would otherwise taste nasty, taste good. Deep fat frying is like barbeque--it is a way to take low quality food and make it taste good--resulting in food with high calories and low nutrition that are, you know, difficult to digest?

Barbeque came about because the poor people were given the nastiest cuts of meat. They developed (or adapted, depending on whom you ask) a method of taking that meat and cooking it using smoke (back then, a cheap way to cook that did not require an oven) and indirect heat (which didn't require a lot of fuel and high heat). The result was some incredibly tasty food--that is of poor nutritive quality.

If we look at obesity and social class, we find very quickly that there is a direct correlation between the two. Social class doesn't cause obesity, but it is a symptom of a series of other issues that can be (in part) causative--or, perhaps, which accelerate the functioning of another cause.

I have to agree that the thought of steamed chicken with some sort of thin, vinegary dip and overly artistic vegetables is nasty. I would rather eat barbeque and fried foods. But, try to recognize that there are multiple factors that work together--obesity in the Southern US is seriously over-determined.

This article is utter nonsense!

man I could really go for some steamed chicken with a thin vinegary dip and veggies right now. You made me hungry!

Because the people in warmer parts of the world NEED fewer calories.

The second part of your answer is the people in warmer parts of the world (sub-equitorial) expend fewer calories doing their daily activities which require less food.

Here in America people has asscess to "comfort foods" which make them into fat pigs.

ie...mickey D's, burger king, KFC, Dunken Dounts, and the list is endless.

but people sit in their 73* F living rooms endlessly stuffing their fat face.

Mr. "Nice"??? Don't see a lot of evidence of that in your post

Perhaps it is the lack of physical activity that is causing an "I'm too cold" response and thus, turning up the thermostat is a result of inactivity.

Cause and effect needs more research.

Maybe because your not stuck inside!

You can't look at climate alone for an obesity rate. A lot of facts such as socio-economics status, general activity, health habits would have to factor in. Maybe they are more active outside, maybe the take into consideration appearance as one would typically wear less clothing if it's warmer. It could also be due cultural influences in that area. Or if you're in the south and you're eating good foods but you fry everything and load it with butter, you're just an idiot.

People in warmer climates are probably outdoors more than the colder climates, I know we are! We definitley tend to hibernate more during winter than we do during spring, summer and fall months. I hate cold winter days! AND YES I have gained about 5 more pounds this winter! Time for the treadmill to get dusted off!

The better the food tastes, the more you eat.

That's why you never trust a skinny chef.

Bar-B-Que was how we ate our meats for hundreds of thousands of years.

In every country where the standard of living has risen, obesity rates go up.

You can't afford a Rolls-Royce when you are a poor American, but you can get food that is every bit as tasty as the most expensive meals had by a billionaire. Some of the fanciest cuisine is too experimental, and kinda nasty at times.

Tasty food is a cheap luxury.

But America is the only place in the history of man whose "poor" face obesity as their number 1 health problem.

What about all the growth hormones etc that is fed to livestock and all the other genetically engineered seeds/plants/fish etc that is now the norm in this country. Add stress/worry to the mix and why would anyone wonder why folks are obese? LOL

Most likely people in warmer climates are more active year round.

Sweating burns calories.

As for the kind of person who wants to wear less clothes when they're obese, we call them Floridians.

The body tries to maintain a core temperature. When the ambient temperature is greater than the core, calories are burned to try to cool down (sweating). When ambient temperature is lower than the core, calories are expended to warm up. In Industrialized countries where almost everyone has a thermostat, the opportunity to expend calories by warming up the body against the ambient temperature is undermined by the accessibility and ease of operating a thermostat. Thus, folks are getting fatter over here. Hmm, I guess the article makes sense.

That may well be a conclusion to be draw from the statistics, but the article certainly doesn't say that.

Pretty typical shallow reporting . . .

I am born and raised in Austin, and I have lived in LA, San Francisco and London as well. There were and are definitely more fat people in Austin and LA than there were in San Francisco, and WAY more than in London. My wife lost 15 lbs in 2 months after moving to London doing no specific exercise, dieting or anything. I explain it by the fact of just walking more to get around instead of driving, not having corn syrup and dairy components injected into every single food, and the colder weather.

With this great cold weather we are having in Austin now, try it; stay at the side of cold as much as you can, keep your windows open, don't always bundle up in a sweater, go for walks in the cold in just a t-shirt and jeans, and after a few days, it's obvious the effect it has on your hunger levels.

Hey Carles The last time I checked walking was exercise! Your wife was walking more so she lost weight what a shock.

Have you ever walked outside in Texas in August? Once your body hits the heat exhaustion point, there isn't anything you can do but stop walking in the heat. This isn't an excuse, it's just a fact, and it's part of why Lance Armstrong moved here to train for the Tour de France, instead of Maine.

I don't see anyone on here looking for excuses, but that doesn't mean there aren't environmental factors. Since you live in Maine, you probably take the positive effects of cold for granted.

Also - portions are important, and insulin impact is equally important. A cup of sugar is going to spike your blood sugar (duh) and cause you to retain the excess calories as fat far more than a cup of black beans.

Oh yeah, don't be a dick.

"Critical Thinker" (in Maine)--it would be nice if you would actually put some of your theoretically superior critical thinking skills to the test.

It is an assumption on the part of thin people that people who are fat must be lazy. The converse is true. People who are fat tend to be badly over-worked. They do not have the time to go to the gym, and brief spurts of television are the only entertainment they can work in before they fall into bed, exhausted, for their six hours of sleep before they are up and at it again.

It is an assumption on the part of well-off thin people that it is safe for people to go outside and that it is safe for people to walk. Neither of these things are safe in my neighborhood. Though, I suppose one would get very thin if one were gunned down and then one was cremated.

It is an assumption on the part of clueless, well-off, thin people that overweight people eat a great deal. There is not a lot produced in a package Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. One quarter of one cup is 290 calories. One cup--or about what a normal person would eat in a bowl if s/he were having nothing else--is 1160 calories. That is about what a person should eat in a whole day. Inexpensive food is fattening even in very small quantities.

It is an assumption on the part of arrogant, clueless, well-off, thin people that when individuals try to determine what it is in the environment that is leading to someone's weight gain that this is somehow "blaming others" rather than "taking responsibility." You know what--not that long ago, poor people were thin. They haven't suddenly started to be worse people and taken to blaming others--but the quality of their food (poor people used to eat the wheat bread because it was cheaper), the additives in their food (hormone free meat is expensive), and the lack of vegetables (veggies used to be cheap, or people lived outside cities and grew their own) has a lot to do with the situation. I don't understand why you can't see that the poorer a person is, the less control s/he has in the workplace and the fewer choices s/he has in terms of housing.

Circumstances force a person to live on Ramen and macaroni and cheese--people don't do it voluntarily. You go live on a diet of poor people's food for a while. Let me know how much weight you gain. Instead of "Supersize Me," we could call it "Humanize Me" and see what you learn from walking in someone else's moccasins for a while.

Beanathome nothing but excuses

carles if you are hot try swimming in a pool.

You just proved the point - you were always hungry (your metabolism increased) because you were always cold (your thermal load increased). If you had kept your food intake exactly the same as before, you would have lost weight. So it's not the fact that you were in cold that caused you to gain weight, it's the fact that you adapted to the change by eating more. I would be curious if you increased your portions of lean meat, beans and vegetables, or if you increased your portions of breads, pastas etc. My guess is the latter, and if so, the weight gain is predictable.

Also - Southern California is notoriously image-driven. People will drive a Mercedes while living in a run-down house. So while I personally saw tons of fat people there compared to London or Boston, even if you have a different experience, it's somewhat to be expected. For a real contrast, compare Maine and Vermont to Alabama and Mississipi.

Carles you should stop talking. Your metabolism is how fast your body burns calories not how hungry you are.

80% of the food we eat goes to maintaining our body temperatures at around 98 degrees. Its a pretty logical conclusion that body must burn more energy to maintain that temperature in cooler surroundings.

Yes, people eat a lot of extra calories, I agree there. However, the idea here is that people in warmer temperatures aren't burning as many calories to maintain their body temperatures.

Trust me.... anyone can test this. Turn down your thermostat in your own home and stop wearing socks or excessive clothing around the house. You will end up losing a few pounds without even trying.

Women worked the fields as well. The household garden did not tend it's self. Also the children worked from dawn to dusk as well. This was also true till after WW2. My grandmother and great-grandmother both worked the fields and garden on the old homeplace. My grandfather started working when he was 4. He sold vegetables from the garden and helped drived the milk wagon. It was the Depression and everyone who could did something. My grandfather never gained a lot of weight and when he did gain some he just cut out the bowl of ice cream a night for awhile. He worked hard all his life including the weekends. When he was in his eighties his heart recovery rate was that of a 40yr old athlete.

Yes, genetics play a role, more than most want to acknowledge but the changes in the food culture and greater emphasis on leisure since WW2 has played an even larger role. Market penetation of processed foods and couch potatoism (which used to be the domain of the rich) has made it difficult to eat a better way. Small towns/cities and rural areas don't have the best farmer's markets. Also Chicken used be cheaper than beef, now it's reversed.

If turning down the thermostat helps then great. i already keep it 66-68 in the fall and winter. However I will keep it cool in the summer. I may have been born and raised in Texas but I am heat intolerant.