Why We Eat Too Much, Have an Easier Time Gaining Than Losing Weight, and Expend Too Little Energy: Suggestions for Counteracting or Mitigating These Problems

The intent of this review is to survey physiological, psychological, and societal obstacles to the control of eating and body weight maintenance and offer some evidence-based solutions. Physiological obstacles are genetic and therefore not amenable to direct abatement. They include an absence of fee...

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Autor principal:	Katarina T. Borer
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	MDPI AG 2021
Materias:	overeating inactivity weight regain overweight obesity insulin resistance Nutrition. Foods and food supply TX341-641
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/d5b9853dbfe34827bc36bafa944d3df0
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:d5b9853dbfe34827bc36bafa944d3df02021-11-25T18:34:21ZWhy We Eat Too Much, Have an Easier Time Gaining Than Losing Weight, and Expend Too Little Energy: Suggestions for Counteracting or Mitigating These Problems10.3390/nu131138122072-6643https://doaj.org/article/d5b9853dbfe34827bc36bafa944d3df02021-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/11/3812https://doaj.org/toc/2072-6643The intent of this review is to survey physiological, psychological, and societal obstacles to the control of eating and body weight maintenance and offer some evidence-based solutions. Physiological obstacles are genetic and therefore not amenable to direct abatement. They include an absence of feedback control against gaining weight; a non-homeostatic relationship between motivations to be physically active and weight gain; dependence of hunger and satiation on the volume of food ingested by mouth and processed by the gastrointestinal tract and not on circulating metabolites and putative hunger or satiation hormones. Further, stomach size increases from overeating and binging, and there is difficulty in maintaining weight reductions due to a decline in resting metabolism, increased hunger, and enhanced efficiency of energy storage. Finally, we bear the evolutionary burden of extraordinary human capacity to store body fat. Of the psychological barriers, human craving for palatable food, tendency to overeat in company of others, and gullibility to overeat when offered large portions, can be overcome consciously. The tendency to eat an unnecessary number of meals during the wakeful period can be mitigated by time-restricted feeding to a 6–10 hour period. Social barriers of replacing individual physical work by labor-saving appliances, designing built environments more suitable for car than active transportation; government food macronutrient advice that increases insulin resistance; overabundance of inexpensive food; and profit-driven efforts by the food industry to market energy-dense and nutritionally compromised food are best overcome by informed individual macronutrient choices and appropriate timing of exercise with respect to meals, both of which can decrease insulin resistance. The best defense against overeating, weight gain, and inactivity is the understanding of factors eliciting them and of strategies that can avoid and mitigate them.Katarina T. BorerMDPI AGarticleovereatinginactivityweight regainoverweightobesityinsulin resistanceNutrition. Foods and food supplyTX341-641ENNutrients, Vol 13, Iss 3812, p 3812 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	overeating inactivity weight regain overweight obesity insulin resistance Nutrition. Foods and food supply TX341-641
spellingShingle	overeating inactivity weight regain overweight obesity insulin resistance Nutrition. Foods and food supply TX341-641 Katarina T. Borer Why We Eat Too Much, Have an Easier Time Gaining Than Losing Weight, and Expend Too Little Energy: Suggestions for Counteracting or Mitigating These Problems
description	The intent of this review is to survey physiological, psychological, and societal obstacles to the control of eating and body weight maintenance and offer some evidence-based solutions. Physiological obstacles are genetic and therefore not amenable to direct abatement. They include an absence of feedback control against gaining weight; a non-homeostatic relationship between motivations to be physically active and weight gain; dependence of hunger and satiation on the volume of food ingested by mouth and processed by the gastrointestinal tract and not on circulating metabolites and putative hunger or satiation hormones. Further, stomach size increases from overeating and binging, and there is difficulty in maintaining weight reductions due to a decline in resting metabolism, increased hunger, and enhanced efficiency of energy storage. Finally, we bear the evolutionary burden of extraordinary human capacity to store body fat. Of the psychological barriers, human craving for palatable food, tendency to overeat in company of others, and gullibility to overeat when offered large portions, can be overcome consciously. The tendency to eat an unnecessary number of meals during the wakeful period can be mitigated by time-restricted feeding to a 6–10 hour period. Social barriers of replacing individual physical work by labor-saving appliances, designing built environments more suitable for car than active transportation; government food macronutrient advice that increases insulin resistance; overabundance of inexpensive food; and profit-driven efforts by the food industry to market energy-dense and nutritionally compromised food are best overcome by informed individual macronutrient choices and appropriate timing of exercise with respect to meals, both of which can decrease insulin resistance. The best defense against overeating, weight gain, and inactivity is the understanding of factors eliciting them and of strategies that can avoid and mitigate them.
format	article
author	Katarina T. Borer
author_facet	Katarina T. Borer
author_sort	Katarina T. Borer
title	Why We Eat Too Much, Have an Easier Time Gaining Than Losing Weight, and Expend Too Little Energy: Suggestions for Counteracting or Mitigating These Problems
title_short	Why We Eat Too Much, Have an Easier Time Gaining Than Losing Weight, and Expend Too Little Energy: Suggestions for Counteracting or Mitigating These Problems
title_full	Why We Eat Too Much, Have an Easier Time Gaining Than Losing Weight, and Expend Too Little Energy: Suggestions for Counteracting or Mitigating These Problems
title_fullStr	Why We Eat Too Much, Have an Easier Time Gaining Than Losing Weight, and Expend Too Little Energy: Suggestions for Counteracting or Mitigating These Problems
title_full_unstemmed	Why We Eat Too Much, Have an Easier Time Gaining Than Losing Weight, and Expend Too Little Energy: Suggestions for Counteracting or Mitigating These Problems
title_sort	why we eat too much, have an easier time gaining than losing weight, and expend too little energy: suggestions for counteracting or mitigating these problems
publisher	MDPI AG
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/d5b9853dbfe34827bc36bafa944d3df0
work_keys_str_mv	AT katarinatborer whyweeattoomuchhaveaneasiertimegainingthanlosingweightandexpendtoolittleenergysuggestionsforcounteractingormitigatingtheseproblems
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Why We Eat Too Much, Have an Easier Time Gaining Than Losing Weight, and Expend Too Little Energy: Suggestions for Counteracting or Mitigating These Problems

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