減肥達人幫寵物狗瘦身
Is your puppy getting pudgy? Does your terrier need to drop a few excess pounds?
Like many adults in the United States, an increasing number of pets are overweight or obese.
Alison Sweeney, the host of the popular television weight-loss reality show "The Biggest Loser," is using her experience in humans to focus on the problem in dogs with a new diet plan for canines.
And judging from a recent study, which showed 35 million canines in the US are overweight, there should be no lack of canine clients.
Sweeney decided to take on the problem in dogs when her veterinarian told her that her Boston Terrier needed to slim down.
"I realized that I had totally not been paying attention to my dog's health," she explained in an interview.
Sweeney is not alone. More than half the dogs in the United States are overweight, according the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, which was founded to combat the problem.
"It's enormously serious. The percentage of obese pets isn't known precisely, but it is surely very high and for the same reasons as obesity is high in humans: they eat more food that they can work off," said Professor Marion Nestle, of New York University, and the co-author of a book on pet nutrition.
"Obesity in pets causes the same problems as it does in humans. It increases the risk of heart disease, some cancers, type 2 diabetes and joint problems."
Sweeney said one of the primary reasons for overweight canines is that people feed their dogs leftovers, which is particularly fattening.
"Feeding a dog an ounce-sized (28.3 gram) piece of cheese, it's like me eating one and a half hamburgers," she explained. "That's a lot."
Five extra pounds on a medium-sized dog is the equivalent of nearly 20 pounds on an average size woman, according to Hill's Pet Nutrition, which produces the Science Diet Weight Loss System that combines pre-portioned meals with biscuits.
Two extra pounds (0.9) on a smaller breed, such as a Chihuahua, is the equivalent of nearly 60 pounds.
你的愛犬越來越發福嗎？你的寵物狗需要減肥嗎？
就如同成年人肥胖大軍日漸壯大，美國的寵物超重或肥胖比例也日漸升高。
很受歡迎的減肥真人秀“減肥達人”節目主持人埃裏森•施威尼正將自身的減肥經驗用在寵物狗身上，併爲它們制定出新的節食計劃。
最新調查顯示，美國有3500萬隻寵物狗超重。依此推斷，需要給愛狗節食的客戶應該不在少數。
當寵物醫生告訴施威尼她的波士頓梗犬需要瘦身時，她決定好好研究一下如何幫寵物狗減肥。
她在一次採訪中解釋道：“我意識到我完全沒有在意小狗的健康隱患。”
施威尼遇到的情況並非個例。根據預防寵物肥胖協會統計，美國有超過半數的寵物狗超重。該協會的創立就是爲了解決寵物們的超重問題。
紐約大學的馬裏恩•內斯特爾教授說：“情況非常嚴重。寵物的肥胖比例還不太清楚，但的確很高，而且其中的原因和人的肥胖比例很高一樣：它們吃了過多的食物，身體消耗不掉。”馬裏恩還曾和他人合著一本有關寵物營養的書。
“肥胖給寵物帶來的危害和人類一樣，會增大心臟病、某些癌症、II型糖尿病、以及關節病的發病率。”
施威尼表示，寵物狗超重的原因之一是人們給它們喂剩飯，而剩飯的脂肪含量很高。
她解釋說：“給一隻狗喂一盎司（28.3克）奶酪，就相當於人吃下一個半漢堡。量很大。”
根據頂峯寵物營養公司的數據，給一隻中等體型的狗多喂5磅食物，就相當於一位中等身材的女性吃下近20磅。該公司爲寵物們推出了“科學節食減肥系統”，將狗糧提前分好分量，並配以小餅乾。
給吉娃娃這種體型較小的寵物狗多吃2磅食物（0.9千克）就相當於標準體型的寵物狗多吃近60磅。
Vocabulary:
pudgy: short and fat or thick（矮胖的）
terrier：any of several usually small, active, and short-bodied breeds of dog, originally trained to hunt animals living underground（㹴狗，一種活潑的小狗）
no lack of: 不缺乏，很多
