Thought this might bring out the worst in Conks, so have at it!!!
(P.S. Look at the comments, too)
Of all the modern trends that have been linked to America's ever-expanding waistline -- portion size, more McDonald's, couch potato lifestyles, and some lesser-known possibilities, like air-conditioning, viral exposure, and lack of sleep -- one of the weirdest is designer handbags.
If your brand-name clutch is making you fat, it would be because it contains, as at least some high-end handbags do, a new kind of chemical to worry about: compounds known as obesogens.
Obesogens are believed to work in at least three ways: first, by directly affecting adipocytes, or fat cells, by either increasing their fat-storage capacity or increasing their number; second, by changing metabolism, by both reducing the number of calories burned at rest and promoting the storage of calories as fat; and third, by changing the way the body regulates feelings of hunger and fullness. (You can help your body burn more calories by incorporating these 4 Foods That Speed Up Metabolism into your daily meals.)
Take this self-test today - Don't think you're avoiding them because you've never paid a week's salary for a purse. Obesogens are ubiquitous. If you've ever eaten seafood, plugged in an air freshener, handled a cash register receipt, eaten canned vegetables, sat on a couch treated with flame retardant, or cooked in a nonstick pan, you've already been exposed. Most alarming is new animal research that suggests that chemicals to which your parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents were exposed -- including the long-banned pesticide DDT -- can cause you to gain weight, even if you've never been exposed yourself.
"It's impossible to know the precise contribution of obesogens to the obesity epidemic, but I would bet that it's significant," says Bruce Blumberg, PhD, professor of developmental and cell biology at the University of California, Irvine. Even on a normal diet, he says, mice in his lab that are exposed to obesogens in utero grow up to be about 15% heavier than unexposed mice. "Fifteen percent," he says. "That's the difference between what we weighed a generation ago and where we are now."
"Muh Pa sez its Obama's fault, so ah guess it is."
