The true cause of obesity

Lack of understanding of energy intake vs energy needs.

Now, do I think that everyone should count calories? Of course not. But I DO think that there's a significant portion of people who do not understand how energy balance dictates weight change, and knowing this could help people either lose, or not get that way to begin with.

I agree that a lot of people do not understand how much they need to eat. What puzzles me is how does every other animal do it? With ample food around you don't get fat lions and fat deer and fat cheetahs. How do they know how much they need?

I can accept your first three theories, but I have to reject the last one. I reject any philosophy that treats "junk" food as if it were some foreign matter that our bodies somehow can't handle. Yes, additives have altered the nature of our diets dramatically, but additives have not chemically altered the food. Food is still food. Nutritional values vary, but if it is identified as food, whether it be healthy or "junk" it is still food. I think that viewing "junk" food as junk instead of food actually fosters an unhealthy relationship with food. As if it is somehow the food's fault that we are fat. We have to take responsibility for our own choices, and I think that blaming any kind of food is blame-shifting. Instead of taking responsibility for the choices that made us fat, we blame the restaurants, food distributors, and the government for not protecting us from the "junk", but essentially, it was OUR lack of self-control when it came to eating the nutritionally defecient food that made us fat.

One caveat I would add to this is...depending on your family background you may have been raised with unhealthy habits that are in fact your parents fault but once you reach a certain age it is your responsibility to educate yourself and fix these habits. Case in point, I was raised drinking soda to the point where I was up to 3L a day, it was accepted and natural in my house. Once I moved out and grew up, I educated myself and made a different choice but when I was a kid I didn't know better and followed my parents example.

I can accept your first three theories, but I have to reject the last one. I reject any philosophy that treats "junk" food as if it were some foreign matter that our bodies somehow can't handle. Yes, additives have altered the nature of our diets dramatically, but additives have not chemically altered the food. Food is still food. Nutritional values vary, but if it is identified as food, whether it be healthy or "junk" it is still food. I think that viewing "junk" food as junk instead of food actually fosters an unhealthy relationship with food. As if it is somehow the food's fault that we are fat. We have to take responsibility for our own choices, and I think that blaming any kind of food is blame-shifting. Instead of taking responsibility for the choices that made us fat, we blame the restaurants, food distributors, and the government for not protecting us from the "junk", but essentially, it was OUR lack of self-control when it came to eating the nutritionally defecient food that made us fat.

One caveat I would add to this is...depending on your family background you may have been raised with unhealthy habits that are in fact your parents fault but once you reach a certain age it is your responsibility to educate yourself and fix these habits. Case in point, I was raised drinking soda to the point where I was up to 3L a day, it was accepted and natural in my house. Once I moved out and grew up, I educated myself and made a different choice but when I was a kid I didn't know better and followed my parents example.

I agree that people should educate themselves and MOST DEFINITELY take responsibility for what they eat. (I think this is the biggest problem with many people today) I do disagree that all food is 'food'. In other words, what we call "food'' these days can be described as junk. Take a look at the labels of what you eat. Most of the food offered in the inner aisles of grocery stores are loaded with chemicals, and chemically extracted oils. They are so processed now I know I can't identify the ingredients. I assume that most people don't know what they are putting into their body. I consider chemically processed foods as junk.

I know I have seen a drastic difference since I stopped eating these foods and shopped in the outer ring of the grocery store/organic aisles. My emotional eating has decreased, and my constant hunger has diminished. A good sized, eggs and bacon breakfast keeps me full for hours.

That is just my 2 cents.

A famous researcher (Jean Mayer) once said... (paraphrasing)

The idea that overeating causes obesity is vacuously true, but is no more enlightening than saying that over-drinking causes alcoholism. We need to ask why does the person over-drink?

To solve our weight problems we need to find out WHY we overeat. It has to be more than just boredom or emotions or stress.

Here are 4 different theories I have come across. Please discuss and feel free to add your own.

1.) THE FAT LAZY SLOB THEORY - We simply eat too much because we have no willpower. Our character has devolved and we are unable to resist foods that make us fat. We are also dumb and do not know which foods are fattening and continue to eat them despite their effect on our health. On top of that if we would just get off our lazy butts and exercise the overeating would disappear or be offset by "burning calories"

2.) THE TOXIC ENVIRONMENT - Junk food is everywhere, and has become ingrained in our culture. We cant help but overeat because the junk is such a part of our environment that using it is as inescapable as using toothpaste or deodorant.

3.) HYPER-PALATABILITY / MENTAL ADDICTION - We have altered food stuffs to the point where they are so delicious and so tasty that they effect "reward centers" in our brains that cause us to become chemically addicted to the foods much like drugs. We need the delicious junk food to comfort us and feed the addiction.

4.) HORMONE BLOCKAGE / INTERNAL STARVATION - The junk food that we eat causes the normal hormonal metabolic process that our body uses to become dysfunctional and unregulated. Our bodies lose the ability to transport nutrients to our muscles and organs. With the nutrients unable to get to our muscles and organs our bodies continuously send out hunger signals as they are "internally starving" and thus biologically we need tons of extra calories to break through the "hormone blockage"

But I know many people can't eat 1200 calories of cheesy poofs and twinkies and call it a day. I know if tried that I would be starving and miserable.

Personally, I don't buy the whole calorie is a calorie idea. I think a calorie theory is a decent measure of the QUANTITY of what you are eating but not the QUALITY of the food you are eating. I am saying that WHAT you eat is just as important, and in my opinion, MORE important then the calorie idea. A calorie of salmon reacts in your body differently then a calorie of cheesy poofs. I know when I eat 500 calories of protein or good fats I feel a WHOLE lot different then when I reached for 500 calories of chips. 500 calories of Protein or fat= not hungry for hours. 500 calories of cheesy poofs = a RAGINGLY hungry me. That is just my personal experience.

I can accept your first three theories, but I have to reject the last one. I reject any philosophy that treats "junk" food as if it were some foreign matter that our bodies somehow can't handle. Yes, additives have altered the nature of our diets dramatically, but additives have not chemically altered the food. Food is still food. Nutritional values vary, but if it is identified as food, whether it be healthy or "junk" it is still food. I think that viewing "junk" food as junk instead of food actually fosters an unhealthy relationship with food. As if it is somehow the food's fault that we are fat. We have to take responsibility for our own choices, and I think that blaming any kind of food is blame-shifting. Instead of taking responsibility for the choices that made us fat, we blame the restaurants, food distributors, and the government for not protecting us from the "junk", but essentially, it was OUR lack of self-control when it came to eating the nutritionally defecient food that made us fat.

One caveat I would add to this is...depending on your family background you may have been raised with unhealthy habits that are in fact your parents fault but once you reach a certain age it is your responsibility to educate yourself and fix these habits. Case in point, I was raised drinking soda to the point where I was up to 3L a day, it was accepted and natural in my house. Once I moved out and grew up, I educated myself and made a different choice but when I was a kid I didn't know better and followed my parents example.

I agree that people should educate themselves and MOST DEFINITELY take responsibility for what they eat. (I think this is the biggest problem with many people today) I do disagree that all food is 'food'. In other words, what we call "food'' these days can be described as junk. Take a look at the labels of what you eat. Most of the food offered in the inner aisles of grocery stores are loaded with chemicals, and chemically extracted oils. They are so processed now I know I can't identify the ingredients. I assume that most people don't know what they are putting into their body. I consider chemically processed foods as junk.

I know I have seen a drastic difference since I stopped eating these foods and shopped in the outer ring of the grocery store/organic aisles. My emotional eating has decreased, and my constant hunger has diminished. A good sized, eggs and bacon breakfast keeps me full for hours.

That is just my 2 cents.

I think people absolutely know what's in their food. If they don't they haven't been paying attention. The information is everywhere-- on the news, on the box, on websites like this one. While people may not have a specific chemical understanding, I think we know that "real" food is healthier than processed. And if they don't know, I think it's their responsibility to educate themselves. Schools do have nutrition classes. There are tons of books, television shows, and websites about how to eat properly. I dislike the notion that we're all just dumb sheep who don't know any better. When I eat fast food, or other "junk food", it's not because I don't know what's in it. There's always something else going on, and for me it has become about priorities. Is it more important to me to eat healthy this meal or is it more important to satisfy the craving I'm having for a sausage biscuit? I go into it with both eyes open.

But I know many people can't eat 1200 calories of cheesy poofs and twinkies and call it a day. I know if tried that I would be starving and miserable.

Personally, I don't buy the whole calorie is a calorie idea. I think a calorie theory is a decent measure of the QUANTITY of what you are eating but not the QUALITY of the food you are eating. I am saying that WHAT you eat is just as important, and in my opinion, MORE important then the calorie idea. A calorie of salmon reacts in your body differently then a calorie of cheesy poofs. I know when I eat 500 calories of protein or good fats I feel a WHOLE lot different then when I reached for 500 calories of chips. 500 calories of Protein or fat= not hungry for hours. 500 calories of cheesy poofs = a RAGINGLY hungry me. That is just my personal experience.

Scientifically a calorie is a calorie, it is a unit of energy. How easily your body accesses and uses those calories is different from food to food. Your body will spend less time working to get the energy from a candy bar than a piece of chicken because the candy bar calories are already broken down for us. All foods have to become glucose for our body to access the energy in them it just depends on how much work we have to do to make it glucose. So yes, the quality of food is totally important but you have to be responsible for making those decisions you can't blame the food.

We have an obesity epidemic in UK at the moment, and part of it may be down to lack of knowledge of just how many calories are contained in fast-food, now so readily available. In wartime Britain, because of food rationing, which went on into the 50s, most adults were pretty healthy. Meat was in short supply, so people supplemented their ration with unrationed offal, like liver, and with lots of veggies; sugar and sweets were rationed, and Coca Cola did not then exist over here (though I do remember an American serviceman in the 1940s giving us a huge box of 'candy' - my eyes were on stalks! I can remember the careful cutting of a rare Mars Bar into 3 pieces between my 2 brothers and me... he who cut, got the last piece! When sweet rationing finally ended when I was 11, I fear I never looked back!

Add to this the added lethargy in getting out to exercise that we are teaching our children. 25 years ago, kids would play out much more, ride their bikes around the neighbourhood, and walk to and from school. For all sorts of reasons (e.g. stranger-fear, time pressures, TV and computer games) this has changed considerably.

But there is also the psychological element ... when you were hurt as a child, were you given, as well as a kiss and a cuddle, a sweet? Look how, if people want to give you a reward, they take you out for a meal, or give you choccies. Birthdays and any kind of celebration always involves food of some sort. So when we are emotionally low, we have learned to turn to 'comfort' food.

The only way to break this cycle is to teach our children about other rewards, and teach them differently about food values and exercise. My long-since grown-up children were taught early on the words, protein, carbohydrate and vitamin, and also knew that they might get scurvy if they didn't eat enough fresh fruit and vegetables! They only had water or milk to drink, except on special occasions, and chocolate and sweets were bought with their limited pocket money.

I agree that a lot of people do not understand how much they need to eat. What puzzles me is how does every other animal do it? With ample food around you don't get fat lions and fat deer and fat cheetahs. How do they know how much they need?

We don't have to chase a hamburger through a forest and tackle it and then break it's neck before we consume it. I also haven't seen a lion order his deer-meat online while watching ESPN.

Drastic energy expenditure differences there.

Lack of understanding of energy intake vs energy needs.

Now, do I think that everyone should count calories? Of course not. But I DO think that there's a significant portion of people who do not understand how energy balance dictates weight change, and knowing this could help people either lose, or not get that way to begin with.

I agree that a lot of people do not understand how much they need to eat. What puzzles me is how does every other animal do it? With ample food around you don't get fat lions and fat deer and fat cheetahs. How do they know how much they need?

Actually you would get fat lions, cheetahs and so on if they have ample food but they don't have ample food.

Maybe. I would argue that it would depend on what the ample food was. Natural vs. unnatural, low quality vs high quality.

I think the "true cause of obesity" is different for everybody. Any one of your theories, and any other theory out there, can most likely be applied to someone's experience. In general, it's overeating and under-exercising combined with eating too much of the wrong things. I know for me, my weight comes on when I eat refined carbs, added sugars, etc., even if I'm eating low-calorie. Someone else may be able to eat cookies all day but lose weight as long as they're in a calorie deficit.

Honestly, I think it's all very individual.