Current theories of the obesity epidemic are inadequate. None of them hold up to closer scrutiny, and none can explain all of the mysteries mentioned

A Chemical Hunger – Part II: Current Theories of Obesity are Inadequate

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2021-07-11 17:30:05

Current theories of the obesity epidemic are inadequate. None of them hold up to closer scrutiny, and none can explain all of the mysteries mentioned in Part I. But these mysteries are real, puzzling data about the obesity epidemic.

You’re probably familiar with several theories of the obesity epidemic, but there is strong evidence against all of them. In this section, we focus on the case against a couple of the most popular theories.

A popular theory of obesity is that it’s simply a question of calories in versus calories out (CICO). You eat a certain number of calories every day, and you expend some number of calories based on your metabolic needs and physical activity. If you eat more calories than you expend, you store the excess as fat and gain weight, and if you expend more than you eat, you burn fat and lose weight.

This perspective assumes that the body stores every extra calorie you eat as body fat, and that it doesn’t have any tools for using more or less energy as the need arises. But this isn’t the case. Your body has the ability to regulate things like its temperature, and it has similar tools to regulate body fatness. When we look closely, it turns out that “calories in, calories out” doesn’t match the actual facts of consumption and weight gain.