“It may be easier to believe that we remain lean because we're virtuous and we get fat because we're not, but the evidence simply says otherwise. Virtue has little more to with our weight than our height. When we grow taller, it's hormones and enzymes that are promoting growth, and we consume more calories than we expend as a result. Growth is the cause - increased appetite and decreased energy expenditure (gluttony and sloth) are the effects. When we grow fatter, the same is true as well. We don't get fat because we overeat; we overeat because were fat.” GrowthObesityHormonesSlothGluttonySlothfulnessWeight GainBad ScienceNew ScienceOld ScienceSugar Is The New TobaccoMisperceptionsThe Sugar Lobby Book:Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It Source: Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
“Of all the dangerous ideas that health officials could have embraced while trying to understand why we get fat, they would have been hard-pressed to find one ultimately more damaging than calories-in/calories-out. That it reinforces what appears to be so obvious - obesity as the penalty for gluttony and sloth - is what makes it so alluring. But it's misleading and misconceived on so many levels that it's hard to imagine how it survived unscathed and virtually unchallenged for the last fifty years. It has done incalculable harm. Not only is this thinking at least partly responsible for the ever-growing numbers of obese and overweight in the world - while directing attention away from the real reasons we get fat - but it has served to reinforce the perception that those who get fat have no one to blame but themselves. That eating less invariably fails as a cure for obesity is rarely perceived as the single most important reason to make us question our assumptions, as Hilde Bruch suggested half a century ago. Rather, it is taken as still more evidence that the overweight and obese are incapable of following a diet and eating in moderation. And it put the blame for their physical condition squarely on their behavior, which couldn't be further from the truth.” Health CareIndividualismSelf ControlSelf RelianceConservatismAmerican CulturePersonal ResponsibilityObesitySlothGluttonyHealth And FitnessHealth Care ReformConservatism In The UsSugar Addiction Book:Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It Source: Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
“Just as animal research tells us that gluttony and sloth are side effects of a drive to accumulate body fat, it also says that eating in moderation and being physically active (literally, having the energy to exercise) are not evidence of moral rectitude. Rather, they're the metabolic benefits of a body that's programmed to remain lean.” BodyEnergySidesAnimalMoralEffectsExerciseBenefitsEatingResearchEvidenceActiveFatsModerationSlothSide EffectsGluttonyRectitudeBody FatAnimal ResearchPhysically Active Author:Gary Taubes
