OK, so don't get into a debate about it, but I would like to point out that extreme is relative. From an evolutionary perspective (i.e. What we naked apes evolved to eat...) I would argue that a standard american diet is FAR more extereme than an atkins diet (at least one that avoids fake low-carb foods) based around meat, green plants, many kinds of fruit, and nuts.
Indeed. For those wanting to learn (a lot) more about this, with references to all the studies, check out Gary Taubes's book Good Calories, Bad Calories.
5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behavior.
6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller. Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger.
So if I didn't have this disorder I can over-eat and become sedentary and not become obese?
I think he's just reframing the levels of causation a bit. You don't say pregnant women gain weight because they eat more than they consume, although from a thermodynamic point of view this is strictly true.
Have you ever met skinny unhealthy programmers who are very sedentary and eat a lot of junk food? I have met many. The point is that different people have very different reactions to food, in terms of hunger, mental reward pathways, tendency to burn off calories through adjusting subjective energy levels (e.g. lethargy) and things like jittering, and hormonal responses. Some of this is affected by the kinds of foods we eat, and much of it is affected by genetics.
The real point is that we can do better than saying "just eat less and exercise more" by looking at things from a different perspective. (I'm speaking as someone who lost 45 pounds in the last year and am currently at about 10-11% bodyfat by the way.)
Can you elaborate on what makes it "much better"? I thought Taubes's book was very well researched (I think he spent about 10 years on it) and very well argued. I'd love to see something even better.
Much more science, less story-telling, but extremely compelling research -- many more studies cited, not just weight but the effect of low-carbohydrate diets on things like gout. Graphs. Very much a "here's the science, here's why, make your own mind up" type of book.
