Is self-control is to blame for obesity?"

John Robbins asked SUSAN PEIRCE THOMPSON 
this really juicy question: 

"Do you think a lack of self-control is to blame for obesity?"

And here's how she answered:

 "I do not think a lack of self-control is to blame for obesity. Not at all.

The brain is wired to keep the body's energy reserves in a tight range, and modern foods have conspired to hijack these homeostatic mechanisms and force body fat reserves upward. Self-control, unfortunately, is not part of this equation.  

 My best analogy is this:
 There are some bodily processes over which we have conscious control ("self-control" if you will) but over which the brain is also exerting control. Breathing is one of them. You can choose to breathe fast or slow. You can choose to hold your breath. But if you're running upstairs, deciding to breathe slowly is only going to work for a short while. At some point, the brain is going to demand the oxygen it needs, and you WILL breathe faster. Self-control has no role in that, once a certain point is reached. 
Fuel is similar, and so is water. You can voluntarily eat less, or drink less, than the brain knows the body needs. And you'll win out for a while. But at some point, the brain is going to kick in and demand more fuel. Or more water. The time scale of this is much, much longer, so our illusion of control is way more pronounced than with breathing. 

Here's how our current patterns of eating have messed things up:
What's going on is that modern foods are raising baseline insulin levels up to 2x or more than their natural level. This is blocking the hormone leptin at both the hypothalamus and the brain stem. Leptin is one of the key hormones in our body's negative feedback loop that controls body fat homeostasis. The fatter our fat cells get, the more leptin is released. That leptin circles back to the brain and says, "You're not hungry anymore. No more fuel, please. And oh, by the way, you feel great, and you want to go get ACTIVE, because you have the fuel on board to go kill a wildebeest or build a hut or find a mate." If the brain sees little or no leptin, it knows fat stores have dropped dangerously low and the body is starving. It kicks in mechanisms to force our prioritization of eating more and seeking food at all costs. AND it makes us conserve energy at all costs.  With today's fatness, leptin is released but insulin is also high. And remember that insulin blocks leptin at BOTH the hypothalamus and the brain stem. So, the leptin that's there is never registered, never "seen" by the brain. The obese individual actually shows all the biological markers of starvation, no matter how much food is consumed.  In another part of the brain, something equally insidious is going on. The sugar and flour that form the foundation of the Global Industrial Diet flood the nucleus accumbens with dopamine. That causes dopamine down-regulation, exactly the same as with cocaine or heroin addiction. The cravings that result form a massive motivational impetus to get more food.  With easy access to sugar/flour food practically everywhere, the brain is going to get what it needs.  And finally, as the obese person rallies to diet one more time, the cruel trick is that the seat of willpower in the brain, the anterior cingulate cortex, goes offline if blood glucose drops. So at mealtime, it's not possible to rally "self-control" and make a healthy choice about what to eat. Self-control is beside the point. *Sigh.*"

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