Why are men getting so chubby?

British men are getting fatter than ever, faster than ever. Last week, Oxford University –scientists reported that the average man is more than a stone heavier — 17lb — than 20 years ago.
It would be easy to blame this dramatic increase on over-eating and lack of exercise, and leave it that. But the Oxford study showed that the explanation isn’t this simple.

Indeed, scientific research is revealing that a cocktail of unexpected factors is helping to drive the male obesity epidemic. These include genetics, pollution, stress, vanity, insomnia —and flabby friends.
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There’s no doubt that British men are eating more. Over their 14-year study period, the Oxford researchers found that around 10.4lb of the extra weight men are carrying was due to extra calories.
But that did not explain the full 17?lb rise. And lack of exercise could only partly account for the difference, says the study leader, Dr Peter Scarborough.
By contrast, the extra 12lb the average woman gained over the same time is entirely explained by them eating more, according to the study, which was published in the British Journal of Nutrition.
This tallies with official statistics that show that nearly half of British men are overweight, compared with just a third of women, while a quarter of men are officially obese (compared with only 7 per cent in 1987).

The result is an epidemic of obesity-related diseases in men: cases of –diabetes have risen by almost a third since 2003, while in women they rose by less than a quarter. Overweight men also have much higher rates of cancer, stroke and heart disease.
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But if overeating and under-exercising are not solely to blame for men’s obesity and disease, what else might be making them fatter?
Research in this field is in its infancy compared with studies of women, but it indicates men have a unique –propensity to put on weight. In November, for example, U.S. –scientists reported they’d found a gene that causes weight gain in men, but not women.
The gene — Arrdc3 — is found in human fat and muscle, but seems to cause only men to become fat as they get older, says lead researcher Dr Parth Patwari of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts.

When he removed the gene from male mice, they no longer suffered from age-related weight gain; in fact, they showed a ‘striking –resistance’ to it. But when the gene was removed from female mice, it made no significant difference...