As someone who is obese (240 lbs on a 5'11" frame) I think he's right at a surface level. I'm fat because I eat more calories than I burn. And what I eat is a choice.
However, the question then becomes why don't I make healthy choices, given the many health and social benefits of doing so? Like a lot of fat people, I've read a lot about nutrition, cooking, and exercise. I know, technically, what needs to be done.
So, why don't I do it?
Here's my diagnosis:
* It doesn't take lot of excess calories to gain weight over time. A single potato chip contains 10 calories. A pound of fat contains about 3700 calories. Eat two potato chip's worth of excess calories every day for a year, and you'll gain two pounds. In 20 years, you'll be about 40 lbs overweight.
* We evolved in an environment of caloric scarcity. Therefore, most of the time, it was to our ancestor's advantage to eat as many calories as they could whenever they could--there was little advantage to having a rate limiter on their calorie consumption.
In other words, there was not much evolutionary pressure to limit calorie consumption.
That said, there are rate limits such as:
* capacity of the stomach and digestive tract
* maximum speed one can shovel food into one's mouth
* maximum speed that our digestive system can break down food into its component parts
* neurochemical mechanisms to turn to other needs (shelter, sex, self-defense, status) once calorie needs have been sated
For example, when the stomach is full, the distension of the stomach wall triggers the release of hormones that cause most people to feel satiated.
The combination of all of these factors lead to an equilibrium weight at which the person naturally arrives without conscious effort.
In talking with slender people, I think most eat as much as they want, whenever they want. I don't think they have to consciously think very much about how much they're eating, or exert effort to control their consumption. Their feedback mechanisms are tight, and they feel sated when their caloric intake almost exactly matches their caloric expenditure.
[Note, I'm generalizing here--some slender people put a lot of effort into maintaining their weight.]
Fat people are similar, but their feedback mechanisms have more slack. They don't feel sated until well after the point required to meet their caloric needs. So, for fat people, eating the "right" amount requires long-term, continuous, conscious monitoring and self-control.
Humans get tired under such conditions, and not many people are willing and able to exert such effort for years at a time.
* Once you are fat, exercise becomes more difficult and embarrassing. You feel tired and unmotivated much of the time, which makes it hard to exercise or spend time preparing healthier food. If you're single, if you're overweight, you'll enjoy much less success in dating, which means less sex and touch, which means more depression and anxiety.
As more and more other pleasures are cut off to you (exercise, sex, companionship), the pleasures of food remain, ever present, inexpensive, and non-judgmental. And the more you turn to food when you're unhappy, anxious, bored, or lonely, the more that pattern of behavior is rewarded.
There are a lot of approaches to take to address the above issues.
IMO, the most promising long term solution is to figure out the neurobiology of the satiation feedback loops, and then modify the brains of fat people (via drugs or genetic engineering) to match what's happening in naturally skinny people.
However, the question then becomes why don't I make healthy choices, given the many health and social benefits of doing so? Like a lot of fat people, I've read a lot about nutrition, cooking, and exercise. I know, technically, what needs to be done.
So, why don't I do it?
Here's my diagnosis:
* It doesn't take lot of excess calories to gain weight over time. A single potato chip contains 10 calories. A pound of fat contains about 3700 calories. Eat two potato chip's worth of excess calories every day for a year, and you'll gain two pounds. In 20 years, you'll be about 40 lbs overweight.
* We evolved in an environment of caloric scarcity. Therefore, most of the time, it was to our ancestor's advantage to eat as many calories as they could whenever they could--there was little advantage to having a rate limiter on their calorie consumption.
In other words, there was not much evolutionary pressure to limit calorie consumption.
That said, there are rate limits such as:
* capacity of the stomach and digestive tract
* maximum speed one can shovel food into one's mouth
* maximum speed that our digestive system can break down food into its component parts
* neurochemical mechanisms to turn to other needs (shelter, sex, self-defense, status) once calorie needs have been sated
For example, when the stomach is full, the distension of the stomach wall triggers the release of hormones that cause most people to feel satiated.
The combination of all of these factors lead to an equilibrium weight at which the person naturally arrives without conscious effort.
In talking with slender people, I think most eat as much as they want, whenever they want. I don't think they have to consciously think very much about how much they're eating, or exert effort to control their consumption. Their feedback mechanisms are tight, and they feel sated when their caloric intake almost exactly matches their caloric expenditure.
[Note, I'm generalizing here--some slender people put a lot of effort into maintaining their weight.]
Fat people are similar, but their feedback mechanisms have more slack. They don't feel sated until well after the point required to meet their caloric needs. So, for fat people, eating the "right" amount requires long-term, continuous, conscious monitoring and self-control.
Humans get tired under such conditions, and not many people are willing and able to exert such effort for years at a time.
* Once you are fat, exercise becomes more difficult and embarrassing. You feel tired and unmotivated much of the time, which makes it hard to exercise or spend time preparing healthier food. If you're single, if you're overweight, you'll enjoy much less success in dating, which means less sex and touch, which means more depression and anxiety.
As more and more other pleasures are cut off to you (exercise, sex, companionship), the pleasures of food remain, ever present, inexpensive, and non-judgmental. And the more you turn to food when you're unhappy, anxious, bored, or lonely, the more that pattern of behavior is rewarded.
There are a lot of approaches to take to address the above issues.
IMO, the most promising long term solution is to figure out the neurobiology of the satiation feedback loops, and then modify the brains of fat people (via drugs or genetic engineering) to match what's happening in naturally skinny people.