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If there’s one thing we all hear when we’re trying to eat better, it’s “everything in moderation.” And we all hear it because we all want to hear it. After all, no one wants to give up their favorite junk food.
But a new study suggests that living by this rule could lead to huge weight gain.
Dissimilarity in foods, not the amount of food consumed, was the factor here for weight gain. Those who ate more unhealthy foods as part of their diet saw a 120% higher weight gain than those who restricted.
They found this by studying the relationship between diet diversity and health, such as abdominal obesity and Type 2 diabetes. 6,814 adults between the ages of 45 and 84 were surveyed during this study over ten years.
They didn’t find any evidence that diet diversity or proportions of different foods had any definite connection to weight gain, but they did find that people who ate the most dissimilar foods had more weight gain, and those who ate smaller amounts of healthy foods had less.
Those with more dissimilar diets were eating healthy foods, but were also drinking more sodas and eating more processed meats.
But if there’s no definite connection, how should you use this information?
If you’re an “eat in moderation” person, maybe it’s best to change that moderation to slowly weaning yourself off of your unhealthy indulgences.
Eating less and less of those fatty foods can help you slowly stop needing to eat in moderation. Then, you won’t need the junk foods at all.
