Weight Gain: Is It Midlife or Menopause?

If your body has started to pack on pounds, you may wonder why it's happening. Here are some answers.

- LAUREN STREICHER, M.D.

Besides hot flashes, one of the main things that gets women in the door of our clinic, the Northwestern Medicine Center for Menopause, is weight gain that feels out of control. And guess what? I've observed that among our patients, the women having that symptom tend to be the same ones who are having hot flashes.

In fairness, it's not just menopause that brings on extra pounds. I've always told my patients that even if they eat and exercise the same way as they did in their 30s, they'll see the number on the scale start to climb. In fact, both men and women gain weight during midlife until it stabilizes around age 60.

Metabolism shifts contribute, but not to the degree that you might think. The belief has been that metabolism slows with age, but a study released in 2021 suggests that it doesn't slow down until age 60, and then only by about 1% a year.