Is Obesity 100% OPTIONAL?

[dbh25]

I recall Dr. Peat mentioning obese women who could maintain their body mass on 700 calories per day. Hypothyroid individuals can easily become obese because of their very low metabolic rates. Also, starving to lose weight - maybe what is being referred to as "will power" in this thread - tanks the metabolism further. You can't compare a person who can eat 2500 kcal/day without problem to one who can exist on 700 kcal per day. The hypo person is not fat because they are lazy or weak-willed. Do you really think obese babies are downing doughnuts and potato chips with abandon, and thin babies are resisting birthday cake for the sake of their figures? They all eat what they want to, and yet some become obese and some do not. Check out these two genetically identical rats with different prenatal nutrition:

What % of the obesity problem do you believe is based on that video, and what % from lifestyle choices, like what your diet has been for years?

 

[tara]

It won't surprise those of you who know me that I would weigh in on this one. :)

I believe obesity is 100% optional.

Believe what you like, but the evidence doesn't support this.

Have you seen Gwyneth Olwyn's series on "Fat: No More Fear, No More Contempt"? I'm sceptical about some of her (acknowledged) speculations, but she has done some factual research on this specific question. For instance, in part IV: https://edinstitute.org/blog/2011/12/12/part-vi-fat-no-more-fear-no-more-contempt

Overweight Means Eating Too Much
Nope.

Statistics from the Healthy Eating Index [Table 10, 1998] show that adults with a body mass index of 20 or less and those with a BMI greater than 30 have similar calorie intakes, as do the two categories between.

Men (ages 18-74) who eat 60% of the recommended daily calories: 3% are BMI 15-20, 36% are BMI 20-25, 43% are BMI 25-30 and 17% are over BMI 30.

Men (ages 18-74) who eat 120% of the recommended daily calories: 3% are BMI 15-20, 46% are BMI 20-25, 41% are BMI 25-30, and 10% are over BMI 30.

Take a close look at that for a moment.

17% of those eating only 60% of the recommended calorie intake are obese. Only 10% of those eating 120% of the recommended calorie intake are obese.

The correlation coefficient is r=0.02594 (p<0.38), and that means that body mass index is not linked to calorie intake.

The next time someone you know decides to comment on a large person needing to stop eating so much, let them know she’s more likely to be eating too little.

The article that extract comes from is one in a series, and there's quite a bit in the rest of the series worth reading too, for anyone who wants a reality check on the prevailing discourse.

Haidut's posted some studies related to the so-called 'obesity-paradox' too. (Paradoxes arise because there's something wrong with the original theory.)

My current view is that probably:

I think some people are probably naturally healthily fat, including some in the so-called 'obese' range.

And some people are fat for a variety of reasons that reflect sub-optimal health, often nothing to do with eating more than normal. Maybe there are some people who get into habits of eating way more than normal resulting in unhealthy obesity too, but they are not shown to be the majority, let alone 100%.

The 'live healthy' bit of the question is a bit vague. If you are sick for some reason beyond your control, you might get obese beyond your control as a result, regardless of your current lifestyle choices, or be able to achieve leanness only by sacrificing health further.

A history of previous stresses of various kinds may create obesity as a longer term adaptation.

A history of overly restrictive dieting for the purpose of forcing the body to leanness can provide such stress.

 

[tara]

Note, I'm saying OBESITY is 100% optional - not that being OVERWEIGHT is optional.

The BMI range is a descriptor - most people will naturally be near the median.
I don't see any reason why some people (a minority) might not be naturally, optimally and healthily further up the BMI range too. As with the height range, or any other variation in distinguishing physical characteristics.

People on this forum gain fat with such diet all the time.

Do they? I noted that Clash's description omitted refined sugars and dairy.

Where do you think the "excess" in "caloric excess" goes?

The body has some other mechanisms for adapting to surplus too. Once it's gotten on with backlogs of repair, maintenance, growth, etc, there is also raising body temp, NEAT, cognitive activity, libido, etc.
Not that they always happen, but they sometimes do.

With dietary choices you can influence how much of the ingested energy gets utilized. Eating more than you are able to utilize will still lead to fat gain, regardless of what you eat. Remember that storing energy as fat has had an evolutionary purpose. Working as intended.

Yes.

 

[tara]

Even if there were some element of choice, it's a bizarre conversation. It's entangled in a public discourse involving myths, judgement, shame, confusion, etc.

Why is it everybody else's business to tell people they could or should change their bodies?

Why should they?

Wouldn't you find it somewhat disrespectful if large numbers of people were constantly giving unsolicited opinion and advice about whether or how you could or should change something about your body, and blaming you if you didn't do it?

It's different from responding with experience or real evidence in a thread where people are asking for advice. This thread is just out of the blue.

Sometimes people might be able to choose to lose fat to get below the 'obese' range. But that doesn't always mean that it is beneficial to their health or well-being to prioritise this. I've known people to lose fat by determination and discipline and then get very sick. Not saying always, but it's not so rare, either. Others have lost fat and had improved health.

And regardless of what the story is in this respect, they may have more important things to do.

 

[shepherdgirl]

What % of the obesity problem do you believe is based on that video, and what % from lifestyle choices, like what your diet has been for years?

Both can play a role. You can be born with metabolic troubles, you can do things to trash your metabolism, or both. Maybe an estimate of the prevalence of true childhood hypothyroidism versus true adult hypothyroidism would give some idea of percentages? But "lifestyle" could also include prenatal stressors, the diet and health of parents, epigenetics, etc. -hard to distinguish between the influence of genetics v. lifestyle.
As for lifestyle choices, as @tara has posted, I don't believe you will find the expected overeating, drinking soda, not exercising as causative. In fact, you will likely find that highly disciplined lifestyles in the name of health are to blame - nuts and oils, intense exercise, fasting, dieting, too much broccoli, low-carb, etc. etc. Too bad we always fall prey to "experts". I just started reading Kate Deering's book (How to Heal Your Metabolism) and she goes into some of these issues in more detail.

Really interesting statistics @tara ! I agree with you - dieting can make one sick. Sometimes people look so haggard after dieting. I am interested in the idea of eating more. Dieting, then having metabolism crash, then trying to bring it back up again, seems like it is a really roundabout way to optimize health, with lots of damage in the process. Whereas raising metabolism first will naturally help with optimizing weight.

 

[inthedark]

This ^^^^^^

 

[inthedark]

Even if there were some element of choice, it's a bizarre conversation. It's entangled in a public discourse involving myths, judgement, shame, confusion, etc.

Why is it everybody else's business to tell people they could or should change their bodies?

Why should they?

Wouldn't you find it somewhat disrespectful if large numbers of people were constantly giving unsolicited opinion and advice about whether or how you could or should change something about your body, and blaming you if you didn't do it?

It's different from responding with experience or real evidence in a thread where people are asking for advice. This thread is just out of the blue.

Sometimes people might be able to choose to lose fat to get below the 'obese' range. But that doesn't always mean that it is beneficial to their health or well-being to prioritise this. I've known people to lose fat by determination and discipline and then get very sick. Not saying always, but it's not so rare, either. Others have lost fat and had improved health.

And regardless of what the story is in this respect, they may have more important things to do.

Yes, this times a million. The OP's question is ridiculous and pointless, especially on a forum ostensibly based around Ray Peat's nuanced and counter-mainstream views on nutrition. I'd hope at this point most of us have figured out that nothing health wise is 100% one thing or another.

This reminds me of arguments people make that being gay, trans, etc are a choice and therefore those people are subject to public scrutiny and judgement. If we believe that obese people are so simply because they lack willpower or drive, then we can other them. If it was so easy to lose weight why would people choose not to, thereby subjecting themselves to such judgement?

 

[tara]

I recall Dr. Peat mentioning obese women who could maintain their body mass on 700 calories per day. Hypothyroid individuals can easily become obese because of their very low metabolic rates. Also, starving to lose weight - maybe what is being referred to as "will power" in this thread - tanks the metabolism further. You can't compare a person who can eat 2500 kcal/day without problem to one who can exist on 700 kcal per day. The hypo person is not fat because they are lazy or weak-willed.

+1

Do you really think obese babies are downing doughnuts and potato chips with abandon, and thin babies are resisting birthday cake for the sake of their figures? They all eat what they want to, and yet some become obese and some do not.

As a tangent, I have known a couple of people who were really round as babies and toddlers. One of them I don't know what they were eating, the other I know had a strong appetite and probably got a pretty varied diet. Both grew to be very strong, active and lean. I can think of no reason to think it would have gone better for them if their mother's' had decided they needed more restrictive diets in infancy.

 

[tara]

This reminds me of arguments people make that being gay, trans, etc are a choice and therefore those people are subject to public scrutiny and judgement. If we believe that obese people are so simply because they lack willpower or drive, then we can other them.

+1
Exactly. Whether or not or to what extent it's a choice, respect for fellow humans would be a good way to go.

 

[nwo2012]

I think youll find that there are obese people who hardly eat anything and obese people who eat a lot.

Still optional. Not improving metabolism by many available options is optional. Sure can be obese eating very little but thats cause thyroid is screwed.

 

[CLASH]

People on this forum gain fat with such diet all the time. Metabolism can become only as efficient as the available nutrients allow it room to be. Where do you think the "excess" in "caloric excess" goes?

With dietary choices you can influence how much of the ingested energy gets utilized. Eating more than you are able to utilize will still lead to fat gain, regardless of what you eat. Remember that storing energy as fat has had an evolutionary purpose. Working as intended.

“People on this forum gain fat with such diet all the time“

1) I dont think that people on the ray peat forum are following the diet I outlined and if they were I doubt they’d be gaining too much fat such that they became obese, even over a lifetime. I also doubt that they would actually gain enough fat to be considered overweight atleast defined as having too much bodyfat as a percentage of body mass. Furthermore, the diet I outlined is more paleo than it is peat to be honest.

“Metabolism can become only as efficient as the available nutrients allow it room to be.“

2) I dont think we are talking about efficiency here. Efficiency would be using as little calories as possible to meet function. We are talking about metabolic expenditure and flexibility of the metabolism, specifically in this context how much energy can the system utilize without storing the excess as fat. Actually even more specifically how much energy can the system utilize without storing excessive amounts of fat. CICO often doesnt incorporate changes in expenditure that the body can upregulate or downregulate based on environment/ internal contextual factors besides maybe exercise. Nor does it consider mechanisms that upregulate or downregulate hunger that adjust energy intake. With this are you implying that if you eat nutrient dense foods you can eat more calories? I’m pretty sure the foods I listed are some of the most nutrient dense.

“Where do you think the "excess" in "caloric excess" goes?”

3) I’m not entirely sure where the excess all goes, but I don’t think its entirely shuttled to fat, especially with those foods. As for where the excess calories possibly go, I would say some is shuttled to fat, some isn’t fully absorbed, the metabolism increases some to compensate, some is shuttled to hormones etc etc. I think the body is adaptive with the substrate provided assuming its not causing digestive distress or inflammation. I think the foods I listed for the most part are the safest available for most people. Also, the caloric excess assumes a finite metabolic rate to some degree. I think it would be hard to constantly push an excess of calories such that fat is constantly gained with the foods I mentioned, especiallyconsidering the measures in the body that regulate appetite and hormonal response to food. Furthermore I dont think the basic CICO concept makes much sense except with the extremes of energy intake and to somehow quantify foods. It may be useful for assessing food quantity and energy density to some relative standard but beyond that is merely an associative value; akin to total cholesterol in the indication of heart disease.
There are many components to foods that lead to vastly different effects on the body that clearly arent explained by calories. An easy example thats relative to this forum is the opiate effect of milk and subsequent prolactin release that can lead toweight gain around the belly and chest. I would say this effect is poorly explained in the standard CICO conceptual model yet very much a reality for alot of people.

“Eating more than you are able to utilize will still lead to fat gain, regardless of what you eat”

4) The equation is multi-part atleast from the model you are implying. Using this model you have how much you eat, how much you utilize and subsequent fat gain. I think you are focusing too much on how much you eat. Thats important but the real question lies in how much you utilize and then also with the possible subsequent fat gain, what are the regulatory factors that are effecting utilization and storage of fat, as well as appetite once certain amounts of fat are storied. There are multiple overlapping layers of control that regulate fat gain, metabolism and appetite. CICO or even the idea that eating excess triglycerides leads to triglyceride storage misses most of these concepts. I think food quality and type is much more important in weight gain and obesity than CICO will ever be because of these factors. The answer to obesity is to find the cog in the system that is disrupting the regulation, especially considering that obesity is an inflammatory issue (this implies there must be an impedus for the inflammation). From what I’ve read I see i think it is endotoxin and PUFA, not too much triglycerides or calories.

“Remember that storing energy as fat has had an evolutionary purpose. Working as intended.”

5) Storing energy as fats does indeed have a purpose but I think there is a healthy range for amount of fat stored. Obesity falls to the extreme of this range and indicates a systemic issue that I dont think is just caused by overeating. I think eating specific types of foods may lead to weight gain at a point of caloric excess, to top of fat reserves, but after that the weight gain will cease due to an inability to continue eating an excess comfortably. Besides, the idea wasnt about storing fat in and of itself. It was about storage of excessive fat and if that could be achieved eating specific foods I mentioned, and if its cause was calories of inflammation.

Define obesity. Putting on 10-20 pounds when you are already chunky starts bordering obesity in my view. @CLASH himself (to whom I was replying) spoke of "becoming fat or overweight". We have many peatarians here who have become overweight as defined by BMI by following the kind of diet that was outlined in his post. Users complain about weigh problems here all the time.

@Prosper

I can’t argue your defintion of obese, but its a bit lose and very subjective. It also misses a few important factors but its besides the point. Agaib, I don’t think that people on this forum have become overweight by following the diet I’ve outlined. I think they became overweight eating excessive amount of dairy products and refined sugars... the culprit seems to be dairy more than anything else with refined sugars taking a close second. This makes sense tho in the context of its opiate effect and large quantities of hormones, not CICO or triglycerides in -> triglycerides stored. It also makes sense with the sugars in regards to endotoxemia and substrate overload without adequate cofactors.

 

[Prosper]

Why is it everybody else's business to tell people they could or should change their bodies?

It's often said that everyone should be free to do what they want as long as they don't harm others. But when an obese person walks in the street, they ruin many people's days. Overweight people are an offending sight that no one should be exposed to in a public space. It's inconsiderate and morally questionable to look appalling and do nothing about it.

I carefully avoid going to the town during busy hours because all the ugly, overweight people with poor posture loitering around would put me in foul mood. These people are enemies of humanity. They revel in ***t. People of such low quality should be released of their pain.

 

[SQu]

I believe obesity is 100% optional.

If it was so easy to lose weight why would people choose not to, thereby subjecting themselves to such judgement?

Who would deliberately choose this? I got there by making a series of well-intentioned errors based on conventional wisdom. Just about everything I was taught was wrong. We know that's very true of other health issues, why not this?

I recall Dr. Peat mentioning obese women who could maintain their body mass on 700 calories per day. Hypothyroid individuals can easily become obese because of their very low metabolic rates. Also, starving to lose weight - maybe what is being referred to as "will power" in this thread - tanks the metabolism further.

The better my willpower, the worse my health. My willpower got so good, hunger was easy to ignore. I was really heading for trouble at that point, though I was slim at the time I knew I had to heal at the expense of no longer being slim, to begin with at least, just didn't realize what was in store. I am still trying to learn not to ignore the signals of hunger and low blood sugar. Developing excessive self control has not been a good thing.

willpower is beautiful but the sad reality is that life force ends up getting sacrificed for the ideal, with recourse only to come later in the form of wisdom. So willpower is destined to lose without wisdom ...

In the case of dieting this would be like starving oneself at the expense of the health/function of the organs as fat is burned

In my experience willpower in the service of an ideal that is faulty is not beautiful but dangerous. Agree that without wisdom it's destined to lose, or worse, you are.

A history of previous stresses of various kinds may create obesity as a longer term adaptation.

A history of overly restrictive dieting for the purpose of forcing the body to leanness can provide such stress.

Exactly.

Still optional. Not improving metabolism by many available options is optional

If you know about them. If you can understand, and tolerate, and mitigate the backlash from a body that's reluctant to leave survival mode. This can take years, has done so for me, still happening.

My experience in a paragraph: Dieting, stress and stupid health fads rebound with fat gain. Restoring health takes years. Especially for women as they age. Raising metabolism only starts to work once health, nutrition, is much restored. During the health rebuilding phase you'll also be making it possible for yourself - in a significantly health-restored future - to cut enough calories to make a difference without a stress rebound that negates it all. Then you have to experiment to find your own weight loss approach that does not stress your body. Seeing as calorie restriction is a stress, you have to find a middle path, calories can't be cut too much. Fat for me cannot be cut too low because it stresses my digestion which is counter productive. So I need some, not too little, not too much. Years of experimentation to find that level. To arrive where I am now: cutting about 300 calories on average. Aiming for 30-40g good fats a day. If I feel anxious, restless, unsatisfied, craving, I am not going to lose any weight, so adjust accordingly to achieve something I can live with, meals must be satisfying, I must feel good. Or it will not work. And certainly will not be sustainable. Then add some metabolism boosters that I am finally tolerating, watch for backlash, adjust, compensate, add my own individualized measures to mitigate.

And if you haven't done all this work? The average person out there, who hasn't heard of Peat? Where would they even start?

 

[Juniper]

I'm late to the conversation and others have already expressed what I'm thinking in response to this post ...Maybe obesity is 100% optional if everyone was starting from the same place as far as knowledge and situation. If everyone had an education that included Peat's understanding of metabolism and knew how to apply it to each unique situation then yes, maybe I would agree that its 100% optional, otherwise, I believe will power is too simple an explanation.

These people are enemies of humanity. They revel in ***t. People of such low quality should be released of their pain.

The world is going to contain situations, people, environments that we find distasteful or stressful to us. Thats just part of being alive because life is messy. You can either approach it with an eye toward compassion or take an authoritarian approach out of fear and loathing. Peat's approach is compassionate because he shares what he knows to help empower people, Ive never seen him ripping on people because they are suffering with low metabolism or have never read & understood his work. In my experience, modern life is no friend to your average person or family, and to assume others are willfully making their lives painful is lacking in understanding. The people you mention are not "enemies of humanity," they, like you and me, ARE humanity and are suffering the human condition in modern life.

 

[Blossom]

I'm late to the conversation and others have already expressed what I'm thinking in response to this post ...Maybe obesity is 100% optional if everyone was starting from the same place as far as knowledge and situation. If everyone had an education that included Peat's understanding of metabolism and knew how to apply it to each unique situation then yes, maybe I would agree that its 100% optional, otherwise, I believe will power is too simple an explanation.



The world is going to contain situations, people, environments that we find distasteful or stressful to us. Thats just part of being alive because life is messy. You can either approach it with an eye toward compassion or take an authoritarian approach out of fear and loathing. Peat's approach is compassionate because he shares what he knows to help empower people, Ive never seen him ripping on people because they are suffering with low metabolism or have never read & understood his work. In my experience, modern life is no friend to your average person or family, and to assume others are willfully making their lives painful is lacking in understanding. The people you mention are not "enemies of humanity," they, like you and me, ARE humanity and are suffering the human condition in modern life.

 

[inthedark]

I've observed -maybe this is only anecdotally true- that women that have a far more difficult time controlling body composition than men. Without getting into an argument about social pressures etc it seems like women are far more likely to have attempted one or more periods of highly restricted dieting for the sole purpose of weight loss than men. In addition women deal with higher estrogen in general -and of course we know a lot about estrogen here- which also leaves them more vulnerable to the myriad environmental stresses we all face.

Finally, I've seen many men post on this forum about how easy it is to simply change their macros, fast, or whatever and change their body composition. That tends to be my experience as well. However I've seen very few women make similar comments. Not saying weight loss is easy for all men or hard for all women, but it does seem more difficult for women generally, and the factors involved are more complicated due to estrogen, hormone fluctuation and changes on an ongoing basis, social pressures to be thin, and likely having a history of restricted eating.

 

[inthedark]

I'm late to the conversation and others have already expressed what I'm thinking in response to this post ...Maybe obesity is 100% optional if everyone was starting from the same place as far as knowledge and situation. If everyone had an education that included Peat's understanding of metabolism and knew how to apply it to each unique situation then yes, maybe I would agree that its 100% optional, otherwise, I believe will power is too simple an explanation.



The world is going to contain situations, people, environments that we find distasteful or stressful to us. Thats just part of being alive because life is messy. You can either approach it with an eye toward compassion or take an authoritarian approach out of fear and loathing. Peat's approach is compassionate because he shares what he knows to help empower people, Ive never seen him ripping on people because they are suffering with low metabolism or have never read & understood his work. In my experience, modern life is no friend to your average person or family, and to assume others are willfully making their lives painful is lacking in understanding. The people you mention are not "enemies of humanity," they, like you and me, ARE humanity and are suffering the human condition in modern life.

Yep, seems like some people here are lacking in compassion, empathy and understanding. We have a lot of ideas and studies here that point towards curing or mitigating cancer but no one made a poll asking "IS CANCER 100% OPTIONAL?"

 

[Sobieski]

I've observed -maybe this is only anecdotally true- that women that have a far more difficult time controlling body composition than men. Without getting into an argument about social pressures etc it seems like women are far more likely to have attempted one or more periods of highly restricted dieting for the sole purpose of weight loss than men. In addition women deal with higher estrogen in general -and of course we know a lot about estrogen here- which also leaves them more vulnerable to the myriad environmental stresses we all face.

Finally, I've seen many men post on this forum about how easy it is to simply change their macros, fast, or whatever and change their body composition. That tends to be my experience as well. However I've seen very few women make similar comments. Not saying weight loss is easy for all men or hard for all women, but it does seem more difficult for women generally, and the factors involved are more complicated due to estrogen, hormone fluctuation and changes on an ongoing basis, social pressures to be thin, and likely having a history of restricted eating.

Yep, nature has endowed women with the ability to retain lots of back up energy as fat for child carrying and rearing.

 

[EndAllDisease]

The only way obesity wouldn't be optional in my opinion is if a person didn't have the freedom to choose what they ate or what they do with their lives.

In addition to freedom to choose diet and to be mobile, environmental chemicals in food, water and air can inhibit the high metabolism required to not be obese, so if somebody receives forced poisons for some reason, like vaccines for example, then that could certainly be a large contributor and make obesity less of an option for the person.

 

[freyasam]

Try dealing with Cushing's, hypopituitarism, severe untreated PCOS or severe untreated hypothyroidism. Then you can tell me how optional it is. What a bunch of ableist fatphobic bull****.

Look up the adverse childhood experiences study. Kids who suffer emotional and physical trauma grow up to be obese as adults at higher rates . Life is complex and obesity is not as black and white as most people have been led to believe. There are all kinds of reasons why someone may be obese . Pretty much none of them have to do with moral character, laziness, stupidity, choosing to be fat and miserable, Etc.