 Hey, everybody, Dr. O here. So I want to make an argument that sitting disease is a key cause of the obesity epidemic. Obesity was rare a century ago, and our DNA has not changed over that time. So what in the world has changed? We now live from our seats instead of up on our feet. We sit more than ever, and we are living with obesity as a result, as a consequence. Moving less has become the new default, the new normal. We have sedentary jobs. We work in cubicles at offices. We work from home. We drive. We have sedentary hobbies. We play video games. We watch TV. We spend time on social media. And sedentary forms of entertainment. We go out to the movies. We go to concerts. We go out to eat. Isn't it odd that the biggest sports fans you know don't play any of them? Our national pastimes involve sitting on our butts while watching other people be physically active. We sit for work. We sit for fun. The default is to find reasons to sit, not to find reasons to move. We drive more and walk less. We push less shopping carts and more shopping buttons. We order in more food, and we go out less. But why is this a huge problem? This lack of movement could be enough to explain the entire obesity epidemic that we're facing today, all on its own. Let's see what the science has to say. Obesity, abdominal obesity, physical activity, and caloric intake in US adults from 1988 to 2010. So between 1988 and 2010, obesity in women in the United States went from 24.9% up to 35.4%. Abdominal obesity in women went from 46% to 61.5%. So big increases. Obesity in men went up even more. Obesity in men went from 19.9% up to 34.6%. And abdominal obesity in men went from 29.1% up to 42%. So similar numbers can be seen all around the globe. This is just US data. Here's the amazing thing. This huge jump in obesity rates and abdominal obesity rates cannot be explained by our diets at all, at least according to this data. I still believe that diet is the best way to get into a calorie deficit. Don't get me wrong. But during this time, between 1988 and 2010, the average woman in the United States went from eating 1,761 calories per day to 1,781 calories per day, increase of 20 calories. The average man went from eating 2,616 calories down to 2,511, while their obesity rates went up. So this comes from NHANES data. This is the best data we have. So if eating more doesn't explain it, then what does? We need to look at something called leisure time physical activity to find the answer. So leisure time physical activity is any physical activity you do when you're not at work. That's why it's called leisure time. The number of adults in the United States who reported no zero leisure time physical activity went from 18.1% all the way up to 51.7% in women and from 11.4% all the way up to 43.5% in men. So in that period between 1988 and 2010, we reached a point where about half of Americans are doing nothing. If they're not at work, they're not doing anything. And the problem is they're probably not swinging a pickaxe all day where they're at work. They're probably sitting at a desk job and then coming home and doing nothing. We didn't really start eating more. We started moving less, much less. Our main problem isn't that we eat like an elephant. It's that we move like this sloth here. So back to the same study. Our findings do not support the popular notion that the rise in obesity in the US can be attributed primarily to sustained increases over time in the average daily caloric intake of Americans. We found no evidence that average daily caloric intake has increased over the last two decades. BMI and waste circumference trends were associated with physical activity level but not caloric intake. So it was more about how little you were moving being linked to your large belly than how much you were eating. And just so you know, things have gotten a lot worse. The US obesity rates currently in the United States are now up to 41.9%. So let's look at another study that shows the difference between lean and obese people is 350 calories of movement per day. So you see myself over 400 pounds and myself currently and physical activity changes are some of the main changes I've made, not the only ones. So non-exercise activity thermogenesis, the crouching tiger hidden dragon of societal weight gain. So I already showed you a study before that said the difference between two people can be 2000 calories, but that's taking occupation into consideration. So here in this study, obese individuals are seated for two and a half hours per day more than the sedentary lean counterparts in this study. And here's a quote, if obese individuals were to adopt the lean NETO type, that's what they called it, the NETO type, they could potentially expend an additional 350 calories per day. And then another quote, to reverse obesity, we need to develop individual strategies to promote standing and ambulating time by two and a half hours per day. And also re-engineer our work, school, and home environments to render active living the option of choice. This quote is the reason I built this course. The entire second half of this course is going to teach you how to do that, how to get you standing, how to get you moving, and how to re-engineer your environment so that movement is the option of choice. That's exactly why we're here. All right, so that 350 calories per day 2,450 calories per week, 127,400 calories per year, that's the equivalent of 36.5 pounds of fat per year. Non-exercise physical activity, or NET, is literally what separates the lean from the obese. So there are key takeaways here. The calories that we are eating are definitely a problem, but the calories that we aren't burning appear to be a bigger problem. Notice that I've said that physical inactivity, or I call it sitting disease, is a cause of the obesity epidemic. I don't think it's the only one. Junk food, poor sleep, stress, a lack of structured exercise, all these things are huge players, but inactivity is what I'm going to tackle in this course. I've already done a course on intermittent fasting to get into a calorie deficit and improve health. I've already done a course on sleep because I think sleep is a massive roadblock between you and your weight loss success, but this is what we're going to tackle here. All right, so what are our action steps so far? Well, if sitting and a lack of leisure time physical activity are the problem, we actually know what the solution should be. So we live in a world where we don't need to move, so we have to find ways to want to move. All right, in the next video, I want to show you why just adding more exercise doesn't appear to be the answer. All right, I hope this one helped. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.