Sure, if your cat is overweight (and as many as six in 10 cats are), you want her to be able to take off excess pounds in order to become healthier and live longer. Extra weight in cats is associated with such conditions as insulin resistance (which can lead to diabetes), urinary tract disease, and liver problems. And those conditions are expensive. People with cats who weigh more than they should spend 36 percent more on diagnostic procedures than people with healthy-weight felines. Now, a new study also shows that losing excess weight doesn’t only increase longevity while saving money. It also improves a cat’s quality of life.
Researchers reporting in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association made the finding when they put several dozen cats on weight management meal plans and helped them either reduce to ideal body condition or get much closer to it. The cats’ human guardians reported that their newly slimmed down pets were more apt than previously to engage in social activities with people and with other pets in the home. They also groomed themselves more, engaged in more playing and hunting, and moved around more in general.
Vegetables helped curtail food-seeking behavior
As any cat person knows, when your pet wants food, or more food, she can be disruptively persistent — vocalizing more, taking another pet’s meals, and, as reported by some, even opening cabinets to get at kibble. In fact, the insistence on more food can lead someone with an overweight cat to throw in the towel on trying to help the pet lose the extra weight. For that reason, when people whose pets took part in the study reported that their cats were bothering them for more provisions as they lost weight, the researchers made recommendations to feed the animals a quarter cup of such low-calorie options as zucchini, green beans, cauliflower, lettuce, or broccoli. Those foods add bulk with minimal calorie impact.
Low and behold, a number of the cats took the vegetables willingly (although most required a very low-calorie sprinkling of a palatability enhancer called Purina Fortiflora Probiotic). It’s just like with people, it seems. Foods that normally might not be that appealing become very appealing when there’s true hunger.
