How & Why Are We Getting Fatter?

“Obesity is a problem that nearly every nation in the world is facing, but there is much that we can do to fix it.” (Richard Attias)

The most widespread, partly true, yet overly simplistic explanation for why more people than ever are getting fatter is that more people than ever are eating more and being less active. There is plenty of evidence that food industrialization the last few decades has increased portion sizes and made food denser in calories. Other industrial “advances,” such as the proliferation of cars and labor-saving devices, as well as more sitting, cause people to be less active. If you add up how many extra calories people consume and how many fewer they expend, then you get larger energy surpluses, which translate into more fat.

The “calories in versus calories out” explanation for obesity epidemic is not entirely wrong, but the situation is more complicated because we have also changed what we are eating. Remember that energy balance is regulated by hormones, especially insulin. Insulin’s chief function is to shuttle energy from the food you have digested into your body’s cells. It bears repeating that insulin rises when blood glucose levels rise, causing muscle and fat cells to take up and store some fraction of that sugar as fat. Insulin also causes fat (triglycerides) in the bloodstream to enter fat cells and simultaneously inhibits fat…