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That hunter-gatherer tend to have very low rates of obesity and metabolic disorders is well documeted, for example https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1

That hunter-gatherer tend to have very low rates of obesity and metabolic disorders is well documeted, for example https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12785 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12785 . It's also well documented that obesity rates have skyrocketed in recent decades (for example https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-defined-as-obese?tab=chart&facet=none&country=USA~Lower-middle-income~Upper-middle-income~High-income~Low-income https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-adults-defined-a... ). From this evidence, we can conclude that obesity isn't a purely natural phenomenon, it's cause by modern lifestyles. But what part of said lifestyles? We need to look for a culprit(s) that: a) hunter-gathers are insulated from, and b) has greatly increased in just the past few decades, following the trend in rising obesity rates. As you note, there seems to be big change in energy expenditure between hunter-gatherers and us, so that can be ruled out. That would seem to leave us diet changes and environmental contaminants. Sugar is commonly cited as a cause of obesity, but recent increases in obesity rates have been much higher than those in sugar consumption (https://onlinestatbook.com/2/case_studies/sugar.html https://onlinestatbook.com/2/case_studies/sugar.html ). Also, there are hunter-gatherers who eat lots of honey (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0040503 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourn...) and they are not obese. So what could it be? I don't claim to know the answer, but there are two possibilities that seem plausible to me, that satisfy conditions (a) and (b) above: - Environmental contaminants: http://achemicalhunger.com/ http://achemicalhunger.com/ - Vegetable oils: https://www.jeffnobbs.com/posts/what-causes-chronic-disease https://www.jeffnobbs.com/posts/what-causes-chronic-disease

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
I appreciate the detailed reply. I feel as though your comment here only serves to underscore my original point. We can speak at the population level about fatness overall, but we still do not have any definitive answers for why we see rates increasing or what fat individuals could do to lose weight. Aubrey Gordon has extensively studied diet and weight loss trends that suggest fat people can become skinny people, and has done an incredible job documenting the ways in which these schemes fail to achieve results for most people. If what fat people really want is to be healthy and feel good about themselves, focusing on weight loss may be entirely the wrong objective. If you are eating a healthy diet and getting moderate exercise, you can be healthy even if you are not losing weight. Conversely, people who are naturally skinny can eat a horrible diet and be very unhealthy without being chastised as "unhealthy" by the casual observer. The focus on fatness and weight loss leaves people who struggle to lose weight feeling horrible about themselves, and helps perpetuate anti-fatness in our society which only serves to make fat people's lives even worse. It can simultaneously be true that we are getting fatter as a population and also that common weight loss beliefs are incorrect. Aubrey Gordon's work is crucial in helping us understand how our society mistreats fat people and how common misconceptions about health, weight loss, and what it means to be fat perpetuate harm against fat people.
- Georgelemental 3y ago
  > Aubrey Gordon has extensively studied diet and weight loss trends that suggest fat people can become skinny people, and has done an incredible job documenting the ways in which these schemes fail to achieve results for most people. I broadly agree; current advice isn't working, and we shouldn't shame people for following bad advice and failing to achieve results. But that doesn't mean we should throw our hands up and ignore the problem either. Obesity is strongly linked to a host of health issues like diabetes and heart disease, it's an urgent problem to fix. At a societal level, we need more and more varied scientific research to find the causes of the crisis At the personal level, it can be worthwile to keep trying different lifestyle changes; if you do eventually find something that works for you, you'll live a longer and healthier life. (Addendum: everyone's metabolism is different. Something is causing the rise in obesity, but that something may affect you differently than other people. And maybe you would have had an unusually high weight naturally, even without the something.)

TaylorAlexander 3y ago

I appreciate the detailed reply. I feel as though your comment here only serves to underscore my original point. We can speak at the population level about fatness overall, but we still do not have any definitive answers for why we see rates increasing or what fat individuals could do to lose weight. Aubrey Gordon has extensively studied diet and weight loss trends that suggest fat people can become skinny people, and has done an incredible job documenting the ways in which these schemes fail to achieve results for most people. If what fat people really want is to be healthy and feel good about themselves, focusing on weight loss may be entirely the wrong objective. If you are eating a healthy diet and getting moderate exercise, you can be healthy even if you are not losing weight. Conversely, people who are naturally skinny can eat a horrible diet and be very unhealthy without being chastised as "unhealthy" by the casual observer. The focus on fatness and weight loss leaves people who struggle to lose weight feeling horrible about themselves, and helps perpetuate anti-fatness in our society which only serves to make fat people's lives even worse. It can simultaneously be true that we are getting fatter as a population and also that common weight loss beliefs are incorrect. Aubrey Gordon's work is crucial in helping us understand how our society mistreats fat people and how common misconceptions about health, weight loss, and what it means to be fat perpetuate harm against fat people.

Georgelemental 3y ago
> Aubrey Gordon has extensively studied diet and weight loss trends that suggest fat people can become skinny people, and has done an incredible job documenting the ways in which these schemes fail to achieve results for most people. I broadly agree; current advice isn't working, and we shouldn't shame people for following bad advice and failing to achieve results. But that doesn't mean we should throw our hands up and ignore the problem either. Obesity is strongly linked to a host of health issues like diabetes and heart disease, it's an urgent problem to fix. At a societal level, we need more and more varied scientific research to find the causes of the crisis At the personal level, it can be worthwile to keep trying different lifestyle changes; if you do eventually find something that works for you, you'll live a longer and healthier life. (Addendum: everyone's metabolism is different. Something is causing the rise in obesity, but that something may affect you differently than other people. And maybe you would have had an unusually high weight naturally, even without the something.)