Is it easy to gain weight as you age? Is there an "age cutoff" for gaining weight? Learn more in this article →

Obesity has become a global public health problem. Currently, more than half of the adult population in my country is overweight or obese. Obesity increases the risk of a series of diseases, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea syndrome, etc.

When it comes to obesity, many people will have this feeling: once you cross the threshold of 25 years old, weight management seems to become a difficult battle, fat accumulates quietly, and body lines are no longer as tight as before.

This makes people wonder, does the body quietly set a "weight gain line" after the age of 25? Is age really an invisible yardstick for dividing slimness and obesity? Can we eat as much as we want before the age of 25?

Is there really an “age cutoff” for gaining weight?

It has to be said that there is an "age cutoff" for obesity. According to global obesity research, for most people, weight increases year by year during youth and middle age.

A foreign survey shows that the overall obesity rate of people is relatively low during childhood. But after adulthood, the obesity rate begins to increase. Data shows that the obesity rate is the lowest at 22.4% when people are 18 to 24 years old, but 25 years old is a watershed. After 25 years old, the obesity rate begins to soar, and the obesity rate is the highest at 45 to 74 years old.

△The horizontal axis is age group, and the vertical axis is the proportion of obese people. It can be seen that the obesity rate rises significantly after the age of 25.

Data from a study in my country also show that the overall prevalence of overweight and obesity varies among different age groups. Basically, the obesity rate increases from the age of 24 to 29, reaching a peak among middle-aged men (55 to 59 years old) and elderly women (65 to 69 years old).

There is actually no particularly clear dividing line as to when we start to gain weight, and there are huge differences between different people, but in general, everyone's weight will increase as we age.

Why is it easier to gain weight as you get older?

Many people would say that when they were young, they could eat whatever they wanted without gaining weight, but when they get older, they will gain weight if they eat a little more. Why is it that people gain weight more easily as they get older?

▲As we age, we eat better and more

The biggest change is that as people age, their living conditions gradually improve, and their diets also change greatly. They eat more and better, and many people have more social events, so eating meat and fish has become a commonplace. Eating more high-energy foods increases energy intake, which naturally makes it easier to gain weight.

▲As we age, our physical activity decreases

When we were young, most people would move around frequently at school or work. But as we get older, we get used to a sedentary lifestyle. Even if we have some time to rest, we would rather lie down and play with our phones or watch TV shows, and we don’t want to move for hours. We move less, not to mention going to the gym to exercise.

If you eat too much and exercise too little, your energy will not be consumed, making it easier to gain weight.

▲As you age, you lose muscle and your metabolic rate decreases

As people age, their muscle mass decreases, with about 10% to 15% of muscle lost between the ages of 20 and 50.

Muscle mass directly determines a person's basal metabolism. Muscle tissue is the largest consumer of glucose in the human body. Losing it means that a large amount of glucose in the body has no place to be consumed, and the energy metabolism rate will be greatly reduced. Eating the same food may store more energy in the body, leading to weight gain.

Moreover, as we age, our fat metabolism also begins to change. A study tracked the changes in lipid turnover rate of 54 people for 13 years and found that as they aged, the lipid turnover rate of their adipose tissue decreased, regardless of whether they lost or gained weight.

Lipid turnover refers to the rate at which lipids in fat cells are removed and stored. A decrease in lipid turnover means that fat is metabolized more slowly in the body, making it easier to gain weight, even if we are not eating more or exercising less than before.

▲ Hormone changes in the body make it easy for people to gain weight

Hormones are chemical messengers for various metabolic reactions in the body, regulating changes in most body functions. As we age, hormones in the human body change, which can also make people more susceptible to obesity.

How to prevent weight gain?

In fact, what we want to lose weight is not to lose bones, muscles, or body water, but to lose fat, because too much fat will increase the risk of disease and make our body bloated.

If you only pursue weight loss without reducing your body fat percentage, or even cause muscle loss, your metabolic rate will be reduced, making it difficult to lose weight and easy to gain weight, which runs counter to the fundamental goal of weight loss. And fat loss is a slow process, which means that any method that wants to lose weight quickly will not stand the test of time.

How to fight against time and keep yourself in shape?

▲ Healthy diet

Diet is a top priority. After all, the basic principle of weight gain is the imbalance of energy intake and expenditure - when energy intake exceeds energy expenditure, the excess energy will be stored in the body.

Therefore, if you want to prevent yourself from gaining weight, you must first reverse your energy balance and avoid consuming too much energy, which is often referred to as controlling your mouth. You must develop long-term healthy and reasonable eating habits, such as not eating too much, eating less high-energy foods such as high-fat and high-sugar foods, drinking less sugary drinks, and eating less fried foods. You may wish to start by following the recommendations of the Chinese Dietary Pagoda to arrange your daily diet and gradually develop a habit and stick to it.

▲Keep exercising

This is the hardest part of the weight loss process, but also the most effective part.

Exercising more is good for your health in many ways. As you age, your muscles will gradually decrease, your fat will accumulate more and more, and your metabolism will also decrease. Exercising more can increase energy consumption, prevent excessive fat from accumulating in the body, and speed up the turnover of fat tissue.

Moreover, more exercise can also increase the body's muscle content and improve the body's energy metabolism capacity. Therefore, you must insist on exercising every day, and it is recommended to exercise for more than half an hour three times a week.