This paragraph demonstrates a widely held, thinly veiled contempt for those with a less fortunate metabolism. This contempt is disgusting, because it is willfully ignorant of all the scientific research that indicates there is a lot more than mere willpower that determines a person's behavior, including eating habits.

As with any religiously held position of superiority, people will continue to justify this contempt with all manner of carefully worded excuses for their desire to feel better than those fat people over there. When does it end?

I think it is no coincidence that the sensational spin the news has put on this story also happens to be a spin that makes their readers feel better about themselves.

What point are you trying to make? That the news should be trying to make people hate themselves more than they already do? Good grief! This research isn't about justifying behavior, it's about identifying the chemical processes driving various metabolic phenomena so they can be controlled and corrected!

You know what about this reseasrch would make an obese reader feel better about himself or herself? It's the fact that, finally, someone has identified a specific mechanism that is causing their problems! It's the hope that comes from having a direction of attack that's more effective than self deprivation.

> What point are you trying to make? That the news should be trying to make people hate themselves more than they already do?

No, my point is that the news should not be trying to make people hate themselves less. Editorializing with peoples feelings in mind may be good business sense, but nevertheless I find it contemptible.

> This research isn't about justifying behavior

I like the research. The research is great. My issue is with the editorializing.

> those fat people over there

It sounds like you are making an assumption about me that is rather false.

That's just it. It is easy. It's absolutely, effortlessly, ridiculously freaking easy. If you're lucky enough to have my metabolism. I can buy basic, average quality food, eat to satiety, binge during the holidays, occasionally eat an entire bag of candy, and barely move the needle on the scale. It's not fair! But it's reality, and my luck with regard to metabolism is compensated for by other things about myself that are less fortunate.

While the arguments from conservation of matter and energy are obviously true, they are not the best guide to find actual success in eating. Human bodies are fantastically complex systems of systems. Human metabolism is a chemical system with an insane number of components. Conscious decision is only a very small part of that system, with the vast majority being controlled by autonomous chemical and neurological processes.

Attacking obesity by focusing on portion control and willpower seems rather like trying to control a PC by carefully fluctuating the voltage coming into its power supply.

So when news outlets start reporting on some part of the problem other than portion control, don't take it personally; take it as looking at the big picture.

> It sounds like you are making an assumption about me that is rather false.

Given your original post about "people trying to justify their poor health" and "big bones", I'd say that assumption is pretty accurate.

The fact is that many fat people come up with all sorts of justifications and excuses to try to make themselves feel better. If you honestly have not noticed this tendency, take a look at the "fat/body acceptance" social movement. It is a real phenomenon, not imagined.

Weight control is far more about maintaining healthy insulin and hormone levels - more sleep, less sugar, alcohol and carbs, some moderate exercise but not full-on jogging - than denying yourself food.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend reading "Good Calories, Bad Calories" - it goes into a lot of the scientific background, weight loss and overfeeding studies, etc.

Is it easy? Fuck no. Do different bodies react in different ways? Of course. Is there nuance involved in making sure your body reacts optimally for weight loss? Of course Are most overweight people consuming gargantuan proportions of shit? You better fucking believe it.

If you live a sedentary lifestyle and consume many thousands of calories a day, fixing the problem isn't rocket science. Pretty fucking simple, and pretty fucking hard.

The fact that I am a fucking lardass is not conventional wisdom, nor has it essentially shown to be wrong. It is a simple fact. No idea what you were trying to get at there.

It sounds like you think establishing a caloric deficit is as simple as forcing yourself to eat less and exercise more. Research says it isn't. Some diets result in a lowered desire to eat. Some diets result in an increased metabolism.

Or maybe the problem is that your portions could be small and still contain too much fructose. I remember watching a talk where speaker claimed it's not easy to find just some bread without added fructose at a grocery store nowadays (I think it was Dr. Lustig's presentation, actually).

Solution: don't eat any bread.

I've been on the Paleo diet for a couple weeks and am loving it. I cook my own meals now, and whenever I get a sweet tooth I just pop open a can of pineapple chunks.

Bread was invented when agriculture was invented. But our body wasn't designed (by evolution) to process a diet of agriculture. It can process it, just like a car can run on corn starch, but it's probably not very good for the system.

People binge on bread these days, it is insane. It is no wonder that any amount of fructose in bread can be alarming when you look at how much is consumed.

The logic is this: evolution is supreme. It's why our eyes see brightness logarithmically rather than linearly. In fact, every sensory input (sound, etc) except pain is logarithmic. Pain is linear. We see green more intensely than other colors because we've spent a long time hunting for prey that hides in green grass and green tree leaves. Evolution determines the very nature of our thinking patterns. It's why some people count "out loud" to themselves in their heads, whereas others count by "seeing" the numbers in their heads. Etc. There are at least thousands of examples of how evolution has forged our state of being.

Evolution determines so much of our nature that in comparison we have very little control over aspects of ourselves. One thing we do control is input to our bodies. We can control whether we watch TV, and we can control which foods we eat. The question here is, which foods should we eat?

One view is that if we eat foods we've been eating for the past million years, then we probably don't have to worry about which foods we eat. The answer is simply, "Eat any which haven't been designed by humans in the past 10,000 years."

In the USA, foods are required by law to list every ingredient. This is a huge advantage if one were to read them. If I see corn starch, soy, sugar (if it's added as an ingredient, then that means the food is artificial), etc, then I don't buy it.

It's incredible how many foods are excluded by this method. You almost can't find ham that hasn't had sugar added. I pretty much have to buy summer sausage, pork steaks, and chicken. No more bologna.

Paleo diets still seem like a good idea to me, I just remain unconvinced that this is clearly due to evolution. Other types of restricted diets seem to stack up well; the diet seems sound but the justifications seem a bit pseudo-sciency.