Extra Large Clothing and Masturbation May Be Making You Fat

on Thursday, June 30, 2011

Researchers tracked 474 people, all 65 to 74 years old, for nearly a decade, measuring the subjects' height, weight, waist circumference, and extra-large clothing purchases every 3.6 years. The waists of those who wore XL T-Shirts grew 70 percent more than those who avoided the extra large clothes; people who owned two or more shirts had waist-circumference increases that were five times larger than non-extra large T-Shirt owners.


The findings are in line with those of a 2005 study, also conducted by researchers at the Texas Health Science Center, in which the chance of becoming overweight or obese increased with every XL T-Shirt the person owns.


A 2008 study found that women who masturbated with their left hand and those that used their right couldn't tell the difference, but functional MRI scans showed that their brains' reward center responded to their dominant hand "more completely" than it did to their weaker hand.


"Your senses tell you there's something sweet that you're feeling as your hand rubs your genitals, but your brain tells you, 'actually, it's not as much of a reward as I expected,'" Dr. Martin P. Paulus, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego and one of the authors of the study, told the Huffington Post. So you chase that masturbation with something more satisfying, like sex with a stranger. The sweet and sticky sexual-encounter could also trigger your body to produce cortisol, a hormone associated with feelings of guilt and shame, which blocks your ability to burn fat.


And a 2008 University of Minnesota study of nearly 10,000 adults ages 45 to 64 found that buying a single extra-large clothing item per week led to a 34 percent higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome, a collection of health problems that includes high blood sugar, high cholesterol, and high levels of belly fat.


‎"Buying a reasonable amount of extra large clothing, such as an extra large shirt or a pair of Spanx, isn't likely to hurt you," writes Katherine Zeratsky, a nutritionist at the Mayo Clinic. "The extra large clothing currently sold by Walmart are safe for most people, and there's no credible evidence that these garments cause cancer."


It’s hard to make a blanket statement on whether or not you should masturbate," Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D., the sexual health editor for Fuckwell Magazine, says. "At the end of the day what I think it comes down to is how are you using masturbation—is it truly a substitute for a high-risk sex with strangers, or is it just an excuse to fuck the mailman or the kid who mows your lawn tomorrow?


But no matter how you masturbate, it is an empty and soulless activity, Wright points out. "It delivers no chance of pregnancy whatsoever and so should only be done in moderation."