If so, the prime suspect or environmental trigger of this defect would be the quantity and quality of the carbohydrates we consume. If the second option is true, then maybe what makes us fat is not an energy imbalance but something more akin to a hormonal defect, an idea embraced by European researchers prior to World War II.
Two, our understanding is wrong and hence so is the ubiquitous advice about how to make things better. One, our understanding of why people get fat is correct, but those who are obese-for genetic, environmental or behavioral reasons-are unable or unwilling to heal themselves. The dissonance of an ever worsening problem despite a seemingly well-accepted solution suggests two possibilities. Worldwide, more than half a billion people are now obese.īesides getting fatter, we are also developing more metabolic disorders, such as type 2 diabetes, which is marked by hormonal abnormalities in the processing and storage of nutrients and is far more common in obese individuals than in lean ones. Today more than a third of Americans are considered obese-more than twice the proportion of 40 years ago. The eat less/move more prescription has been widely disseminated for 40 years, and yet the prevalence of obesity, or the accumulation of unhealthy amounts of body fat, has climbed to unprecedented levels.
The reason to question this conventional thinking is equally self-evident.
So the solution is also obvious: eat less, exercise more. By this logic, any excess of calories-whether from protein, carbohydrate or fat (the three main components, or “macronutrients,” in food)-will inevitably pack on the pounds. “The fundamental cause of obesity and overweight,” the World Health Organization says, “is an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended.” Put simply, we either eat too much or are too sedentary, or both. Why do so many of us get so fat? the answer appears obvious.
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