Let’s talk about obesity! I get to fight with @savortooth, who thinks we should keep spending big $ for research. I think not. Thread's kinda long, but stick with me, and I’ll tell all y’all why we’re fat and what to do about it. 1/34,321 (kidding)
We’ve spent some 40 years studying obesity, and here’s my question: name ONE USEFUL THING we’ve learned that there’s consensus on. (USEFUL = helpful for weight loss) ONE THING! There isn’t one. There is exactly one important truth about obesity. discovermagazine.com/2018/may/one-b…
And in case you don’t want to read that whole story, I’ll give you the executive summary: WE EAT TOO MANY CALORIES. And it’s not carbs or fat or microbiome or genes or stress or air conditioning or lack of sleep. Those are DECK CHAIRS on the TItanic of obesity.
Everybody’s spending big money doing research on the deck chairs while the ICEBERG is RIGHT THERE. And I’ve said it a zillion times. It’s the landscape of cheap, calorie-dense, ubiquitous, delicious, convenient food DESIGNED TO BE IRRESISTIBLE.
Is it really any wonder that, when big food companies with deep pockets set out to make food irresistible, they succeed? So all this research is going in to biochemistry and metabolism and gut bacteria is BESIDE THE POINT. Why? ...
We don’t overeat because we’re HUNGRY. We overeat because we’re TEMPTED.
discovermagazine.com/2016/nov/siren…
discovermagazine.com/2016/nov/siren…
And yeah I know it's bad form to keep posting links to my own stuff, so here's a link to a paper @KevinH_PhD (an actual and excellent scientist!) wrote about the food environment and obesity. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
Years ago I interviewed a zookeeper who told me a story about his orangutans. They were doing great, eating what orangutans eat (fruits & veg!), and then someone donated a steady supply of leftover donuts and someone else decided, Hey! Let’s feed them to the orangutans.
They got fat pretty much immediately. We are them. We are ORANGUTANS WITH DONUTS. (The book I haven’t even written the proposal for is ORANGUTANS WITH DONUTS: Why we’re fat and what to do about it. Any editors out there wanna bite?)
Back to research dollars. I’d argue (and this is FLAGRANT UNSUPPORTABLE OPINION) that not only has research not improved obesity, it’s made it worse. It’s medicalized it, policy-ized it, when what really matters is the interface between consumers and food.
Nobody - NOBODY - wants to blame people for failing to successfully navigate a food environment specifically designed to overpower them. But when we blame poverty, food access, genes, and metabolic dysfunction, the lesson is: you’re not in charge.
washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food…
washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food…
What if, from the beginning, everyone had focused on how to help people not eat the donuts? Some have. Most haven’t. Instead, we get biochemical research and, inevitably, crank diets that make people think IF ONLY I DON’T EAT X … And that’s just bullshit.
We also have people saying “It’s not willpower” which is out-and-out GASLIGHTING. Every single one of us who has struggled with weight (I have) knows the feeling of TRYING NOT TO EAT something. Saying that isn’t “willpower” is a direct contradiction of what the damn word means.
The crux of the biscuit is TEMPTATION. That’s what we have to navigate. We can do it personally, by manipulating our own environment. In my house, there’s always onions and frozen peas and mustard but no ice cream or chips or cookies because I just don’t want to be tempted.
But we have to do it societally, by pressuring workplaces and Little League to think hard about when/where/how to feed people. If we ask nicely, would Home Depot take the candy away from the check-out? Basically, we need ways to make it easy to NOT EAT THE DONUTS.
This is (mostly) NOT A JOB FOR SCIENCE. We don’t need yet more research that shows that it’s easier to eat less if you don’t encounter tempting food at every turn. We need to stop pretending it’s about carbohydrates and start changing the food zeitgeist. THE END
