Ant Hive Media - Gary Taubes Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It Summary

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Core Concept 1

One of the most commonmisconceptions when it comes to being fat is that the consumptionof excess calories is the root cause

There is no sense to the logic, although thelatest opinions dominate it.

Many nutrition experts believe there is asimple formula to explain the phenomenon of being overweight. Theformula being that you will put on weight if you consume morecalories than you burn.

The experts reason that people areincreasingly overweight because they follow a diet of unhealthy andhigh calorie foods. They fail to burn it all because of an inactivelifestyle, spent in the office, on the road, or on the couch.

If this was true we might as well concludethat overweight people are simply gluttonous and lazy. Or that ourbodies work like balloons - they blow up when we put calories intothem and shrink again after the calories are burned.

To believe this would be to massivelyoversimplify the human bodys complex processes. It also doesntexplain why some people of normal weight take in more calories thanthey need.

Besides, there are cases of impoverished orunderfed people becoming overweight. For example, Native Americanslived in terrible poverty at the beginning of the 21st century.Their children showed symptoms of deficiencies because there wasntenough for them to eat. Despite also living on an inadequate diet,their mothers were however obese.

Therefore, could it be possible that todayslogic may sound convincing, but is far from the truth?

Obesity is still an epidemic despite thedominant theory on what causes it. Furthermore, this theory cannotexplain why there can be such a big difference in the weight ofpeople with very much the same lifestyles.

Anyone giving a serious thought to theprevention of obesity should therefore be very dubious about thelong-established theory with regards to the subject.

Core Concept 2

The prevalent theorythat we get fat due to fat is flawed, and cannot explain theabove-mentioned contradictions

As a matter of fact, we already possessedthe information needed to stop obesity in the 1960s. However, thenutrition experts chose to ignore it.

Up until the 1950s, the common belief wasthat hormonal imbalances were the main culprit causing people to beoverweight. This belief slowly disappeared after World War II. Inits place came the theory that eating disorders were responsiblefor obesity.

The shift to focus on eating disorders asthe main factor responsible for obesity came as a result ofincreased public interest in the major rise in heart disease. Heartdisease was at the forefront of the public health discourse duringthe 1970s. In turn, it developed into a central theme of thepolitical and economic discourse.

According to the health experts there was aneasy explanation for clogged arteries, heart disease and obesity:too much fatty food in the diet. People believed it, although thelogic was flawed.

The public health sector and the medicalfraternity warned against the harmful consequences of eating fat.It did not only affect the publics mindset toward fat, but alsothat of an entire generation of medical students.

Does it mean doctors and nutrition expertswho believe in the fat theory are careless? Not necessarily. Infact, the reasoning that fat causes obesity is rather appealing.People are so easily convinced by it that its difficult toquestion or to convince them otherwise.

The above-mentioned is the main cause of theflawed belief that we must reduce our fat intake to lose weight.With obesity and heart disease continuing to increase, it ishowever safe to say that this theory hasnt had the desiredresults.

Core Concept 3

Eating less and exercising more do notnecessarily prevent obesity

The usual suspects when looking forsomething to blame for being overweight is an unhealthy diettogether with the absence of an exercise routine.

What then is the real contributing factorturning us into couch potatoes? Is it the wonderful ingredients inpotato chips? No. What is true is that our dislike of being activegradually makes us lazier. This lethargic feeling should however beviewed as one of the symptoms of a hormonal imbalance, not muchdifferent from an excessive appetite.

When children experience big growth spurtsthey tend to be less active physically. It doesnt mean that theyare lazy, but only that most of their energy is channeled intotheir growth. The reason why they dont want to participate inphysical activities during this time is because they hardly haveany energy left.

A similar thing happens when weight gainstarts. More energy is needed by fatty tissue. This relates into agreater hunger. At the same time, we become lethargic because ofgrowing fat cells. It is therefore not fair to describe obesepeople as lazy or with a weak will. To rid themselves of excessweight is a much bigger challenge for overweight people.