(NaturalNews) A new report published in the journal Pediatrics has many common sense folks scratching their heads in confusion. Childhood obesity has become a major problem with more than 17 percent of American children now overweight, and most people realize that poor diet and lack of exercise are to blame. But a new study has somehow linked a flu-related antibody to being overweight, suggesting that it may be possible to actually "catch" obesity from an obese person.

According to the report, children who have been exposed to "adenovirus 36" (AD36), a common cause of respiratory and eye infections in humans, are apparently more likely to be fat than children who have never been exposed. Researchers came to this conclusion by sampling 124 children, in which 22 percent of those who were overweight had antibodies from AD36 in their bodies as opposed to only seven percent among those who were of a normal weight. From this, they concluded that the antibody must play some role in causing obesity.

Such reasoning, of course, is absolutely ridiculous because every medical professional knows that correlation does not imply causation, especially when it takes an extreme stretch of the imagination to make a connection, particularly one between a virus and obesity. But this fact did not stop the team from suggesting that obesity may be caused by a virus.

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