Obesity Is Genetic, But Americans Blame It on Lack of Willpower

Fat shaming is a shame.

Scientific research shows that diet is not enough to overcome obesity. Neither is exercise the sure way to weight loss success. Obesity and morbid obesity don't yield to a combination of diet and exercise, either, at least not very long. But stubbornly ignoring the facts, Americans by and large believe that obese people got that way by eating too much so fat is their fault.

What Do Americans Believe About Obesity and Morbid Obesity?

In 2016 the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery funded a research group called the Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago to survey Americans to determine their beliefs about obesity and how to deal with. As most Americans know from election polls, there can be some very serious shortcomings in the analysis of survey data. The researchers used a system called Amerispeak, in which panels of individuals rather than single individuals were asked multiple questions about many different topics to minimize bias and problems with sample selection. Interviews were conducted between August 11 and September 21, 2016, by Internet and also using both landlines and cell phones.

The survey found that:

• Nearly all (94 percent of) Americans believe that obesity increases the risk of dying early.
• Nearly all (also 94 percent of) obese Americans have tried to lose weight.
• Relatively few (38 percent of) Americans believe that obesity itself is a disease.
• Americans consider obesity a more serious threat to health than diabetes, heart disease, mental illness, or AIDS, but most do not speak with their doctors about how to treat it.
• A majority of Americans who are clinically obese believe they are actually just "overweight."

The survey also found that people who are obese see doctors less often, twice a year or less. It found that white Americans tend to worry about the connection between obesity and heart disease, African-Americans are on average less concerned about diabetes than other groups despite having a higher risk of the disease than other groups, and Hispanics more than any other group are likely to have tried to diet and failed.

Of greatest concern to the researchers was the general misunderstanding of why people get fat. Experts believe that obesity is due to a combination of 

And What Do Americans Believe About How to Lose Weight?

NORC also surveyed Americans on their beliefs about how to lose weight. The survey found that 60 percent of Americans are currently trying to lose weight. Four in five Americans believe that the best way to lose weight is through a combination of diet and exercise. One in five Americans who are obese have tried to lose weight 20 or more times without success.

READ Long Term Weight Loss: How to Lose The Weight And Keep it Off

Relatively few (about one-third of) Americans have confidence in herbs, supplements, medications, or meal replacements as useful ways to lose weight. Of the reasons obese Americans give for not losing weight:

• 49 percent claim there aren't enough places for exercise that are safe and affordable.
• 51 percent would have weight loss surgery (41 percent are actually medically eligible) but their insurance does not pay for it.
• 67 percent say that healthy foods are just too expensive.
• 70 percent say that they spend too much time in front a TV or computer.
• 83 percent say that they just don't have the willpower.

What Are the Real Methods of Weight Loss Success?

The survey also found that 95 percent of all Americans have been on a weight loss at one time or another. Herbalife, Dexatrim, and similar supplements have been used by over 70 million people. Fifty million Americans have sat down with a nutritionist. Twenty million Americans have tried hypnosis and prayer groups. Twelve million Americans have tried weight loss medications such as Saxenda, Qsymia, and Contrave. Between three and four million have had gastric bypass, sleeve gastrectomy, or gastric band surgery.

Americans do just about anything they can to make diets work, but diets by and large almost never work. Most Americans think that the reason their diets don't work is that they lack willpower to stay on them, but almost no one has that kind of willpower (and if you do, you are likely to have other issues). The reasons almost no one has the willpower to stay on a diet long enough to lose weight and keep it off are at least three:

• When you are dieting, your brain becomes more sensitive to cues to where you can find food. Not only are you more likely to notice food when you are dieting, if you eat it, it will taste better. You will want more. Your brain will keep making you enjoy food until you have eaten enough to make up for the fat you lost and a little more.  
• When you are dieting, the way your body makes the hormones that regulate your appetite changes. It makes less of the hormones that make you feel full. It makes more of the hormones that are something like your stomach's screaming at your brain "Feed me! Feed me now!" You don't just feel hungry. You feel hungrier than before, and it takes more to fill you up than it did before you started dieting.
• When you reduce calorie consumption, your body "turns down the thermostat" so it burns fewer calories. The fewer calories you consume, the fewer calories your body uses. There are ways to get around this plateau effect as you are losing weight, but they involve going off your diet periodically. And going off your diet periodically exposes you to the full effects of the first two changes in your body when you are dieting mentioned above.

READ Best Way to Maximize Weight Loss through Exercise?

When people lose weight on a diet, they call it a success. When people later gain weight back, they assume that they failed. But they didn't. The diet failed. Diets are never more than a temporary way to lose weight. 

Trying to force your body to weigh less than its normal range, other than with weight loss surgery, generally simply does not work over the longer term. Your hormones, except with surgical modification of your stomach, will eventually undo your diet efforts. Some people simply must change their weight to fight morbid obesity, but most people, and certainly most Americans, need to pursue the best health possible at the weight they are now.