It is vital for your self-esteem to understand the underlying reasons for obesity. Without this understanding, you may not choose the right measures to deal with it. You may also feel uneasy about your weight problem, blaming yourself unnecessarily. Please take your time reading this page.

Writing in the British Medical Journal , Professor Susan Wooley and Dr David Gardner highlight the role of the professional in people's increasing weight. They say:

"The failure of fat people to achieve a goal they seem to want - and to want above all else - must now be admitted for what it is: a failure not of those people but of the methods of treatment that are used."

In other words, blaming the overweight for their problem and telling them they are eating too much and must cut down, is simply not good enough. It is the dieticians' advice and the treatment offered that are wrong. Wooley and Garner conclude:

"We should stop offering ineffective treatments aimed at weight loss. Researchers who think they have invented a better mousetrap should test it in controlled research before setting out their bait for the entire population. Only by admitting that our treatments do not work - and showing that we mean it by refraining from offering them - can we begin to undo a century of
recruiting fat people for failure."

BASIC REASONS FOR OVERWEIGHT

The World Health Organisation has now provided official credibility to the many National claims that the incidence of overweight, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and hypertension are rapidly increasing in the prosperous western world, particularly in the United States of America and in the United Kingdom. The official figures show that in the past 50 years obesity in the population - the precurser of many other health problems - has increased from about 7% of adults to about 35% and in 2001 over 50% of the adult population in both countries are overweight. You are not alone.

There are many complex reasons for this rise. Here, we are only concerned with issues of weight control, specifically with those which you as an individual will need to know so that you can identify the best strategy for your own weight control. The reasons for being over-weight or obese fall into two groups: social and personal. You need to know the social reasons to understand the advice you are given by your dietitian or doctor about your eating habits. You need to know the personal reasons so that you can check out how these play a part in your eating habits and your lifestyle.

SOCIAL REASONS FOR OVERWEIGHT

• The appearance of the 'healthy eating' concept promoting the consumption of less fat and more bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, pulses, other vegetables and fruit. Essentially, replacing fat as a preferred energy source with carbohydrates.
• The appearance and promotion of polyunsaturated fats. Essentially, replacing stable animal fats with unstable, cholesterol free oils and margarine.
• The development of a multi-billion dollar industry providing low fat, high carbohydrate convenience foods in about 15,000 varieties.
• The development of a multi-billion dollar dieting industry.
• The development and sale of a range of pharmaecutical products to lower blood cholesterol, appetite, hunger and blood pressure, dealing with symptoms rather than the causes of malnutrition.
• The education of two generations of scientists, nutritionists, dietitians and doctors in the 'low-fat' doctrine.
• The universal acceptance of these developments by governments and health agencies world wide, publicised with great success by the press and media.

  Essentially, the financial interests involved in the promotion of the 'healthy eating' doctrine is so huge that you can think of it now as being cast in 'concrete', defying new scientific knowledge. The crucial point is that no scientist worth next year's research grant is allowed to challenge seriously the now universally accepted low-fat doctrine, let alone assert that the very recommendations of 'healthy eating' totally ignore our evolutionary energy consumption and expenditure controls which used to manage what and when a human being should eat. Consequently, we developed modern eating habits and a change from fat burning metabolism to sugar or glucose burning metabolism directly leading to obesity.

  PERSONAL REASONS FOR OVERWEIGHT

  You need energy and nutrients to live. Food is the main source of these. Your body has evolved signals for its needs.

• Hunger which signals that you need energy.
• Appetite which signals what type of a nutrient you should have and how much of it.

  Unfortunately, these signals evolved when we all had a fat burning metabolism - before the healthy eating doctrine promoted carbohydrates as our preferred sources of energy. These signals work very well when it comes to controlling fat and protein intake. They work erratically, if at all, with carbohydrate intake.

  If you consume food which provides you with more energy than you can use, that excess energy must be managed. This is the first critical problem with the 'healthy eating' doctrine. When you have a fat burning metabolism and you consume some butter or cream, your appetite will control the amount you eat. Attempting to eat more than you need will make you feel sick, no matter how much you like these foods. But if you have a sugar burning metabolism as a result of using carbohydrates as your main source of energy, your appetite will let you eat sweets all day without signalling. You can easily consume too much energy for your needs.

  Your body, however, recognises the excess energy from carbohydrates in a different way as it metabolises into bloodsugar, or glucose. The pancreas produces a surge of insulin which turns the excess level of glucose into body fat. You put on weight. There is a further problem. As your intake of excess energy from carbohydrates is turned into fat, your blood is depleted of its glucose content and you begin to feel hungry again. Remember, your signal for needing energy is hunger. You will eat some more, very probably more carbohydrates. You enter a viscious cycle of continuous weight gain and hunger.
  
  Changing your energy source from fats to carbohydrates presents you with other reasons for being over-weight. Cutting out fats, or cutting down on them, deprives you of a number of vital fatty acids and sterols which your body needs, contributing to the feeling of wanting something more to eat. Carbohydrates do not provide these or any other vital nutrients.
  
  There are two personal reasons with a social dimension which can lead to being over-weight. One relates to the time of day when you have most of your energy intake. If you have a good breakfast and a good lunch and a light dinner, you will match your energy intake with your energy needs. If you have little or no breakfast, a light lunch and a large dinner, you will consume the largest amount of energy when you least need it, leading to putting on weight.
  
  The other reason stems from your use of energy. If you are a young, active person your energy requirements will be greater than someone who lives a sedentary life style. It is this issue which occupies the attention of the 'healthy eating' deciples when they advocate counting the calories of the food you eat. It is because if you eat a lot of carbohydrates your appetite will not deal with the excess consumption, therefore you will have to fall back on counting calories. You could find it very difficult to count the calorific value of the energy you use so even if you count the calories you consume, balancing this with your energy use can be a hit and miss affair.
  
  Please continue your journey inside the Perfect Weight Initiative. Next it is as well to know whether you are overweight. You can check this on the next page
  
  Be careful about where you obtain your information. www.dietfraud.com gives you valuable information about diet scams!