A research that has investigated American overweight individuals' eating habits and lifestyle announced that most of these people claim that they eat low calorie food and strenuously exercise. The study was carried out by a team from a Michigan Health Care research firm called Thomson Medstat.

The team analyzed what were the answers of about 11,000 overweight Americans to a question regarding their lifestyle, eating habits and exercising. They surprisingly found out that 40% of the individuals in the study stated that they intensely exercise three times a week. Moreover, ¾ of them consider their diet a healthy one and, all in all, look at their lifestyles as being healthy and normal ones.

The facts reported by the respondents are rather beyond believing, because if their answers were true, then this means they lead the same lifestyle as normal weight people. What is the problem, then? How come more and more American persons are overweight and obese? "There is, perhaps, some denial going on. Or there is a lack of understanding of what does it mean to be eating healthy, and what is vigorous exercise," said Dr. David Schutt from the Michigan firm that conducted the research.

However, 28% of the overweight people in the study admitted they take two or more snacks daily in-between meals. But this cannot be regarded as a cause that could explain, at least partially, why they have weight problems, because 24% of normal people also have a snack or more. The weight gain of obese people can only be explained by the amount of food and snacks they eat. This could make a really big difference, but the researchers failed to address this key question.