Obesity is officially now an epidemic. The rate of obesity in this country has been rising steadily over the past 30 years, and more recently, and most alarmingly childhood obesity is on the rise too. In response to this there is now a huge industry focus to help us lose weight. Books, fad diets, and commercial weight loss programs are all vying for our attention as ‘the’ solution to the obesity problem. Everyone professes to have ‘the’ secret. Unfortunately, for all of us who struggle with our weight, it is not that easy.
Part of the problem, is that we have been taught we are overweight simply because we eat too much and are lazy and inactive. This is not helpful and is probably inaccurate. To paraphrase Dr. Jean Mayer, a noted nutritionist, defining obesity by overeating, is no more helpful than defining alcoholism by overdrinking. It just restates the problem in a different way. Instead, consider the possibility that the primary problem of obesity is the increased storage of fat, and that once this occurs, we eat more and are less active in order to maintain our body mass. In a similar fashion, when a child is growing taller and eats more, we don’t think they grew taller because of overeating; we understand that the growing child ate more because he was growing. For some reason, we only accept this concept for vertical growth, but not horizontal growth.
Getting back to the issue of the increased fat storage, why does this occur? The most likely reason is there is a disconnect between our genetic code and our current modern lifestyle. It is probable that our current genetic code as it relates to fat metabolism, last evolved tens of thousands of years ago. At that time, we had a physically very active lifestyle; and our diets were moderate in calories (food was hard to come by), low in refined carbohydrates (they did not exist), and heavy in proteins, unsaturated fats, wild fruits, vegetables, and roots. Also, there were intermittent famines and droughts, so the people who survived to reproductive age, were the ones who most efficiently stored fat during abundant food times to be used to survive later on during lean times. Now, take a population with these genes for efficient fat storage and feed them lots of refined carbohydrates (sugar, high fructose corn syrup, flour, rice, etc) less protein, and saturated fats; then make them less active with cars, elevators, and desk jobs and the result is an epidemic of obesity.
Unfortunately, reversing this is not easy, but it is also not impossible. If you treat the underlying problem, excessive fat storage, then weight loss can occur. The secret to doing this is not such a ‘secret.’ If you want to lose fat, and as a result lose weight, you must lower your caloric intake, avoid refined carbohydrates (sugar, bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, corn, high fructose corn syrup) do both strength and cardio exercise, change your eating behaviors, and consider the use of supplements and/or weight loss medications recommended by a qualified physician.
The May/June issue of Charmed will details effective fat loss strategies.
Dr. Martin Passen is the founder and Medical Director of The Center for Medical Weight Loss in Owings Mills, MD. 410-356-THIN (8446)
