Dive Summary:
- A study by Kaiser Permanente, published in the journal PLOS ONE, shows a connection between the food packaging chemical bisphenol-A and obesity in girls between the ages of 9 and 12.
- Using urine samples taken from 1,326 male and female children ranging from grades four through 12 at three Shanghai schools, researchers determined that girls aged 9 through 12 were twice as likely to be obese if they had levels of BPA higher than 2 micrograms per liter.
- BPA is in everything from plastic bottles to metal containers and can alter the body's metabolism, but the study found no significant link between BPA and obesity for girls older than 12 or boys of any age.
From the article:
... "There's this dogma that weight is about calories simply going in and out. This research suggests that's simply not the case," said Bruce Blumberg, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of California, Irvine. Blumberg was not involved in the study. ...