Scientists Don’t Agree on What Causes Obesity, but They Know What Doesn’t

Isn't questioning implicit assumptions a really important thing to do when you can't figure something out?

> a prevailing societal view of obesity, which assumes people have full control over their body size

Unless you eat while sleepwalking or something, you do have full control over how much you eat, and I don't think anyone who only eats 2000kcal/day ends up weighing 300lbs.

> As long as we treat obesity as a personal responsibility issue, its prevalence is unlikely to decline.

That's true for now, since we're heading towards a culture that eschews personal responsibility.

> A recent Times of London column argued that fat shaming is a real solution to obesity, just as Bill Maher ranted earlier that the body positivity movement — a “joyful celebration of gluttony,” he said — harms people by condoning weight gain. Quite the contrary: Researchers have repeatedly found fat shaming promotes weight gain and harms.

Consider moving a point along y=x^2, starting at the origin. Increasing x increases y. Does this mean doing the opposite must decrease y? Of course not.

100 years ago people would have spent 25%+ of their income on food, nowadays it's more like <10%. You don't see this in countries where the income is much lower (although they're not eating a western processed diet, so it's hard to decide what's the cause). Medieval nobility were the only ones who could afford to get fat (e.g. Henry VIII) - maybe if the peasants could afford to eat as much as him they'd all be as fat as a modern person.