THE NEW YORK TIMES A select group of the world’s leading researchers who obesity recently met in the golden rooms of the Royal Society, the science academy of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, where ideas such as gravity and evolution have already been discussed.
Now scientists are discussing the causes of obesity. In the closing session, biologist John Speakman drew this conclusion on the subject: “There is no consensus as to what causes it.”
That’s not to say the researchers didn’t agree on everything. The threeday meeting was marked by an implicit understanding of what obesity is not: a personal blemish. No panelist argued that people collectively lost willpower in the 1980s as obesity rates rose first in highincome countries and then in much of the world.
Not a single scientist has claimed that our genes have changed in such a short time. Laziness and gluttony were not mentioned as obesity factors. Contrary to the prevailing view of obesity, which assumes that people are in complete control of their height, they do not blame individuals for their health conditions any more than we blame people suffering from malnutrition problems.
Instead, the researchers referred to the obesity as a complex, chronic condition and came together to understand why people have been gaining weight overall over the last half century. For this, they shared a number of mechanisms that could explain the global rise in obesity. And their theories, varied as they are, make one thing clear: as long as we treat obesity as a matter of personal responsibility, its prevalence is unlikely to decrease.
A nutritional biologist came up with the idea that all the carbohydrates and fats in our diet today dilute the proteins our bodies need, causing us to eat more calories to make up the discrepancy. Discussing the scientific model behind the lowcarb diet approach, an endocrinologist suggested that highcarb eating habits are fatpromoting. One evolutionary anthropologist has argued that many lean huntergatherer societies ate large amounts of carbohydrates with a particular preference for carbohydrates honey🇧🇷
Other scientists have suggested that the problem is that ultraprocessed foods, the prepared and packaged products that make up more than half of the calories Americans consume. A physiologist shared his randomized control study showing that people eat more calories and gain more weight on ultraprocessed diets than on wholefood diets with the same nutrient composition. But it’s still unclear why these foods make people eat more, he said.
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The mystery may be explained by the thousands of toxins that highly processed foods can contain in the form of fertilizers, insecticides, plastics and additives, argued one biochemist. His research on cells showed that these chemicals interfere with metabolism.
Still others have suggested that the problem may not be so much what we eat as what we don’t eat. An animal behavior expert shared her work on the link between food insecurity and obesity in birds. When food becomes scarce, the animals eat fewer calories but gain more weight. Human studies have also found a “robust” link between food insecurity and obesity, she said the socalled obesityhunger paradox.
By the end of the conference, attendees were no closer to a unifying theory for the global rise in obesity — a condition that has existed in humans since at least Hippocrates but has only been spreading since the launch of MTV. In that short time, however, the scientists, including many in the room, have learned a lot.
They identified over a thousand genes and variants that increase the risk of obesity. They found that body fat is much more than an energy store and that not all people with obesity develop the complications that come with it, including cancer, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and premature death.
Scientists have also made remarkable advances in mapping how the brain orchestrates eating and adapts to different diets, changing food preferences in the process. However, they disagreed on what exactly has changed in recent history to affect these complex biological systems.
Since that meeting, I have been struck by the deep gulf between the debates I have heard and the talk of obesity in our culture. With the exception of the carbohydrate debate, no scientist has delved into the supposed solutions that currently fill diet books and store shelves.
There was no serious dialogue about procedures, uses of diet or intermittent fasting. No one suggested that supplements could help people lose weight or that metabolism needed to be boosted. The only speaker speaking on the gut microbiome argued that human obesity studies have been disappointing so far.
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In other words, there were no quick fixes or magic tricks in that London boardroom. And while there was excitement at the incredible advances in medicine in treating patients with obesity, effective drugs and surgery were not mentioned as definitive solutions to the public health crisis.
:quality(80):focal(5x5:5x5)/cloudfrontuseast1.images.arcpublishing.com/estadao/ISZAZDLWH5OJDPEXXNWJIETWI4.jpg "Obesity: A rare consensus among scientists about what doesn't explain why we're fatter 3")
It’s still not clear why these foods make people eat more. The mystery may be explained by the thousands of toxins that ultraprocessed foods can contain. Photo: Portal/Will Burgess
When I asked many of the researchers how they would deal with obesity given the uncertainties, they pointed to policies that would change or regulate our environment, such as banning the marketing of junk food to children, banning vending machines in schools, and the neighborhood improvement. to hikes.
They talked about changing the food system to address that as well climate change a related crisis that was once faced with political inertia but is now gaining momentum internationally. But when it comes to obesity, governments are still accused of interventionism when trying to regulate the sector.
This is partly because obesity is not viewed as a societal challenge, but individual decision biases dominate. This view is fraught with blame and misunderstanding—and it’s everywhere. People are simply being told to exercise and eat more vegetables the equivalent of fighting global warming by asking them to recycle more and fly less. Diet gurus and corporations spend billions on diet and exercise fads that ultimately fail.
When people can’t control their body weight, they often blame themselves. I recently interviewed a man who developed severe obesity after a brain tumor a common side effect in his case. The tumor went undiagnosed for months after doctors told him to diet and exercise more. But even today, he told me, the tumor seemed like “an excuse” for the old struggle with the scales, so he doesn’t talk to anyone about it.
Other people also mention shame. A recent column in the Times of London argued that fat shaming [zombar ou envergonhar pessoas obesas] is a good solution for obesityjust as Bill Maher went so far as to say that the body positivity movement — a “jolly celebration of gluttony,” he said — harms people by condoning weight gain.
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On the contrary, researchers have consistently found that fat shaming harms people and promotes weight gain. It is believed that at least some of the negative health consequences of obesity are caused by stigma and discrimination, leading to poorer health care.
Until we see obesity as something foisted on society and not something the individual chooses, fat shame, magic tricks and bad public policy will continue. Until we stop blaming ourselves and each other and start turning our attention to environments and systems, the global obesity rate will continue to rise a trend that no country has significantly reversed, even among children. 🇧🇷 TRANSLATION BY RENATO PRELORENTZOU