Why do we get fat

Chapter 13 "Because" eat more, "so" fat? —Big mistake!
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it is about to launch an initiative to "count food calories."After a few years of advocating low-fat diets, it's time to emphasize what may seem like a novelty, but is actually very old and unalterable science: People who eat more calories than they burn get fat.The obesity of the human body cannot bypass the laws of thermodynamics.

—The New York Times, December 2004, 12

"The laws of thermodynamics are not immune to obesity." This must be a very old and immutable piece of information.As early as the beginning of the 20th century, when German diabetes expert Carl von Norden first argued that we gain weight because we take in more calories than we expend, experts and non-experts alike have been convinced since then that the laws of thermodynamics follow a certain It's believable that there are ways in which our bodies are governed.

Arguments to deny it, such as "the actual reason we fail to lose weight are not just the double sin of eating more and moving less" or "we can lose weight even if we don't eat less and move more" are always dismissed as quackery .As John Taggart, a physician at Columbia University, once insisted in the preface to his essays on obesity: "[Those claims] are emotional and groundless, and we have absolute confidence in the validity of the first law of thermodynamics." Belief."

Such a belief is not out of date, but it certainly does not mean that the laws of thermodynamics have to rule when it comes to weight loss.Newton's laws of motion, Einstein's theory of relativity, and even quantum mechanics are all laws of physics that we believe in, and none of them offer us an explanation for obesity.The laws of physics really don't explain anything when it comes to obesity and weight loss.

How many experts have single-handedly created the current obesity problem by misunderstood this simple fact?Experts are used to referring to "obesity is a disorder of energy balance" in weight loss advice.If the belief that "the laws of thermodynamics must be the way to lose weight" is not abused, then the idea that we must consume fewer calories than we consume in order to lose weight will no longer exist.

Obesity is not a disorder of energy balance, eating too much and moving too little, and thermodynamics has nothing to do with it.If we can't understand this, we will go back to the old traditional way of thinking about why we gain weight and why we fail to lose weight. It is indeed a trap, a century-old quagmire.We can't sink any further.

There are three laws of thermodynamics, and experts believe that the answer to why we are obese is the first law, also known as the law of conservation of energy.It refers to the fact that energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form to another.For example, when detonating a group of explosives, the potential energy contained in the chemical bonds of nitroglycerin is converted into thermal and kinetic energy of the explosion.Because all mass—our fatty tissue, muscles, bones, organs, even a planet or star—is made of energy.To put it another way, we cannot create something out of nothing, or make something into nothing.

For example, it is impossible for the body to grow bigger, fatter, and heavier if it takes in fewer calories than it expends.This is because, if the person becomes fatter and heavier, more energy is required than if the person is thinner and lighter.He has to take in more energy than he expends to keep up with his weight gain.If he expends less energy than he takes in, then he's unlikely to get leaner or lighter.Energy is conserved.This is what the first law of thermodynamics tells us.

The principle is so simple.However, this law does not explain why.It doesn't mention cause and effect, it doesn't tell us: why are we getting fat?It just tells us: if you get fat, it is caused by eating more and moving less.Logicians say it does not contain causal information.

The reason health experts think the first law of physics has something to do with why we get fat is because they say it first to themselves and then to everyone else.As The New York Times reported: "People who eat more calories than they burn gain weight." It's true, it must be.You get fatter and heavier, it must be caused by eating more, it must be because you take in more calories than you burn, that is an established fact.But thermodynamics doesn't tell us why this happens.Why do we take in more calories than we burn?have no idea.It simply means that if we eat more, we will get heavier; if we are obese, we must eat more.

Let's put aside the topic of why we gain weight for a moment.Imagine we're discussing why a room is getting crowded.The answer must be that there are more people.If you ask me this question, I would say, simple, because more people go into the room than go out.You may think I'm a smart guy, or an idiot.You will say that of course more people go in than go out, which is self-evident.but why?The fact that the room is crowded because more people go in than go out is superfluous, two ways of saying the same thing, and meaningless.

Listen, here's what I'm saying: more people are going in than going out, and the room will get more crowded.This does not violate the laws of thermodynamics.You'll still say, yes, but so what?At least, I think you will think so, because I still haven't explained cause and effect.I'm just repeating the "self-evident" truth.

This is also what happens when we use thermodynamics to say "eat more and we will get fat".Thermodynamics tells us that if we get fatter and heavier, more energy must be entering our bodies than leaving.Eating more means we take in more energy than we expend, and it comes down to just two ways of saying the same thing.Neither account explains why.

Why do we take in more energy than we expend?

Why do we choose to eat more?

Why do we get fatter?

Answering "why" involves real reasons.The National Institutes of Health says on its website, "Obesity occurs when a person absorbs more calories from food than he burns." Experts use the word --emerge, they don't say explicitly Eating more is the cause of obesity, it is only a necessary condition.They are correct.But now is the time to ask: Well, so what?Rather than telling us what else happens when obesity occurs, wouldn't you rather tell us why obesity occurs?
To those pundits who claim "we get fat because we eat more" or "we get fat because we eat more", most of you are making a logical error similar to getting a failing grade in a high school class.Students (that is, innocent us) accept a natural law that has nothing to do with why we get fat, but only see a phenomenon that will inevitably occur if we do get fat-eat more, and then take all of the above for granted truth.This was a common mistake in the first half of the 20th century, but it has been ubiquitous since.We need to find another way to find the answer.

A report published by the National Institutes of Health in 1998 may be a good start. Experts are more forward-looking and scientific than before when discussing the factors that may cause obesity. "Obesity is a complex, multifactorial chronic condition arising from the interplay of genotype and environment," they explain. "Our understanding of how and why obesity develops is incomplete, but obesity necessarily encompasses social, A combination of behavioral, cultural, physiological, metabolic and genetic factors."

It is very likely that the answer we are looking for lies in these comprehensive factors, starting from the aspects of physiology, metabolism and genes, and leading to the initiator of the environment.What we should be sure of is that, while true, the laws of thermodynamics tell us nothing about why we gain weight, and why we eat more calories than we expend when obesity occurs.

(End of this chapter)