The current mainstream model of weight loss is that it is caused by overeating and a lack of physical exercise. This we are told causes a positive energy balance, which leads to weight gain in the form of mainly body fat. It is true that overeating will cause a positive energy balance, but if this food is of high quality and its delivery to the tissues is slow enough for the body to process the nutrients, the excess energy can be oxidised as heat through a series of regulatory mechanisms orchestrated by the hypothalamus. In addition, as energy reserves increase, leptin levels rise and this creates further feedback mechanisms to curtail food intake through activation of satiety mechanisms and also further increases in metabolic rate to increase the oxidation of fuel. In this way despite fluctuations in energy intake, a positive energy balance does not result in weight gain in normal healthy individuals. Teenagers often eat like horses but they gain little weight due to their effective homeostatic weight control systems.
It is often claimed that greed and laziness are the causes of obesity. This is not true because obesity is a disease just as type 2 diabetes is a disease. It would be more correct to say that a lack of nutritional knowledge is the cause of such diseases. Once that knowledge is obtained, the diseases can easily be reversed without the need to diet.
Stating that the overweight and obese are both lazy and greedy is disingenuous because the weight gain seen in such individuals is pathogenic. That is to say that it is a disease state and not the result of incremental body fat accumulation in a healthy person. Just as someone with diabetes is considered to have a disease, the overweight also have a disease that should be recognised medically. Both type 2 diabetes and obesity are characterised by insulin resistance, albeit at different levels of severity and with different associated pathologies. Being overweight has little to do with greed or laziness, but is in effect a reflection of poor food and lifestyle choices. However, as the uneducated and impoverished are more likely to suffer from obesity is could be argued that this is not a choice, but instead caused by a lack of discernible judgement on the part of the person. Accepting that laziness and greed is the cause of weight gain, as the mainstream model suggests, is very damaging psychologically to the individual.
Self perception that greed and laziness is not the cause of weight gain can be a positive motivational factor. Belief that laziness and greed is the cause of weight gain by be a very powerful negative motivational factor.
One of the most important considerations to make if you are overweight is therefore the acceptance that the weight gain you have experienced is due to a pathology. This acceptance is important because it provides the correct solution to the problem. If we accept that obesity is caused by a disease, we know that we must treat the cause of that disease in order to improve health. As the cause of the disease is insulin resistance, it becomes obvious that treating insulin resistance is the key to fat loss. It is true that some of the recommendations of mainstream weight loss do improve insulin resistance, however, because they do not make it the main focus, the effect are not as effective as directly targeting the causal problem. Acceptance that obesity is not caused by laziness or greed also provides a psychological boost because it empowers the individual that it is not any inherent character flaw that has caused them to gain weight, but a lack of knowledge of the correct course of action.
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