Or alternatively, they know they are eating too much, but simply don't have the will power to quit. I'm no food expert, but to me it looks like any other addiction. They rely on food emotionally, so when they are ashamed or depressed that they aren't losing weight, they turn to food, which continues the addiction cycle.
We have literally evolved to overeat. And one thing people don't consider is that genetics does play a real role. Just because it's easy for you to not overeat as much doesn't mean it's the same for others. I personally believe the solution will ultimately have to come from science/technology. We need a safe and efficient appetite reducer that people can take regularly.
Right, there already are some on the market like Wegovy (1). But they're expensive AFAICT and seem to have lots of side effects. Hopefully as we get better with synthetic proteins we can create more targeted treatments with less side effects. Also, many types of foods and additives also manipulate appetite. So while the article is true, there's still huge variability in the body's appetite response. Eating "less" can backfire in subconscious ways of re-adding extra calories in other hidden ways.
Long term (centuries), as a species I suspect we may end up doing some light genetic modifications to tune our appetite for norms in modern civilization. Presuming modern western style lifestyles become more sustainable.
We're less than ~100 years into this crazy modern era where routine famines aren't the norm. Even in Western Europe post-WWI and post-WWII there were lots of famines. If you compare Western Europe with the USA-minus-1.5 decades you get similar curves of obesity increase [2]. That makes sense if you consider that post-WWII it took Western Europe about a decade or two to repair basic infrastructure. The whole bit of overall Europe having healthier cuisine than the US isn't true, with regards to obesity at least. It's largely seems to be availability of calories. Eastern Europe for example reflects the fall of the USSR and economic stagnation during 1990's pretty well too [3].
You misunderstood what I said. We evolved in a world where food was scarce, hence why we evolved to overeat once we do find food. In the past 100 years, food has no longer been scarce (for people living in a first world country), hence the obesity.
There's been an upper class for whom food wasn't scarce for thousands of years. Socrates wrote about it, and it was looked down upon as type of gluttony and quite unhealthy. However, even those upper classes, who didn't have any food scarcity did not typically get fat.
Blaming it on food scarcity isn't the whole story. It's not enough that food scarcity stopped. It wasn't carbs either, as there are cultures without carb scarcity that weren't obese(Though we do put corn syrup in everything now).
My guess is that it's a dopamine addiction. We understand that sometimes we must do things we don't like, but the idea of eatings things we don't enjoy scares many people.
It's also how corps package food, and the ones that make their foods the most addicting(the most dopamine -> the most pleasure) survive.
>even those upper classes, who didn't have any food scarcity did not typically get fat. //
Some kings in the past had massive obesity problems, like Henry VIII. Apparently for him it was forced immobility following a hunting accident. Most people in the UK just haven't been able to afford to get obese until the last several decades, and I warrant companies have learnt how to hook us on high-fat and high-sugar foods to make bigger profits.
There's a phenomenon that many island populations have abnormally high levels of morbid obesity. This comes from the huge advantage of having any genetic disposition to better store more fat/energy in a situation where more can not readily be obtained by increased hunting range, etc.
Which? The only case I heard of was the archipelago in thr pacific where the lands and water were so polluted from colonial agriculture that they couldn't eat their ancestral foods, and had to rely heavily on imports of canned and prepared foods.
If you follow the "see also" from that article studies find the genetic factors towards becoming obese in a favorable environment to be different in different ethnic groups, from 6-85%.
So a theory that fits the statistics is that colonialism brought in a favorable diet for weight gain to everywhere(?) but the percentage of people who became obese when subjected to a favorable diet was largely a factor of local genetics, genes most useful in an unfavorable environment did well and put the peoples in those places at the top of the list for obesity rates.
Obesity was literally always a thing, it was just hard for crap covered serfs to get the calories to make it a thing for them. For the other classes though...
Populations with similar wealth and food abundance and genetics (eg developed countries in Europe/ North America with USA being an outlier in wealth) have quite different rates of obesity so I don’t really think this explanation is sufficient.
American society is basically brainwashed as to what is and isn't healthy. It takes actual effort to become well informed.
So many food products are marketed as "Fat Free, Organic, High In Fiber, Heart Healthy" and so on, even though the products are just a bunch of processed low quality crap. Even beer is frequently marketed as "Low Carb". In reality, there is no reason in include any calories for alcohol in any diet where the goal is losing weight.
"Alcohol has no calories". Can't count the number of times I've heard that. Nope. The human body can metabolize ethanol. 7 calories per gram. A few shots of vodka is a light meal with no nutrients.
