Baby Boomers and Gen X like to fault millennials for complaining about, well, everything, but it looks like 20-somethings finally have some ground to stand on with one big gripe: It's harder now than ever before to lose weight. And before you let mom and dad tell you it's because of — what else? — social media, think again. Those #foodporn photos kids these days post all the time aren't doing the damage. (At least, there's not a study on that yet.)

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According to researchers, even if you work out as much and eat the same amount as people did in the '70s and '80s, you're not going to get a summer bod nearly as easily. After comparing weights of people with the same lifestyles and similar food intake in 1988 and 2006, they saw that the latter group had a BMI 2.3 points higher than the first group. They go on to hypothesize three reasons why this is so.

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For starters, there's the fact that we're exposed to a lot more chemicals than folks have been in the past. A recent, separate study found that one-third of fast food packaging contains harmful additives, but products you find in grocery stores can have them, too. Things that fall under that umbrella include pesticides and flame retardants, and they can alter your hormones, affecting the way you put on weight. Prescription drugs are also to blame, researchers say. Doctors hand out more scripts for antidepressants, which are often linked to weight gain.

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But the third assumption might be the most upsetting — because there's literally nothing you can do about it. Americans' microbiomes, the army of bacteria in your gut, have altered since the '80s. This is not necessarily new: Humans' microbiomes have been changing since ancient times. Even so, the changes in the past few decades have made us more prone to weight gain and obesity. It might be all the meat we're eating at last, a case for Meatless Mondays!) or the artificial sweeteners that clog so many foods.

Unfortunately, it looks like all those out-of-our-hands factors are majorly bumming out Americans. Many overweight people have stopped even trying to shed pounds. In March, researchers analyzed health surveys conducted between 1988 and 2014 by the U.S. government and noticed the percentage of people who said they were trying to slim down dropped from 55 percent in earlier years to 49 percent.

Jonathan Boulton

If you're game to give healthy eating a try, we've got you covered — breakfast, lunch, dinner, and everything in between.

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