The Emerging Paradigm Shift in Understanding the Causes of Obesity

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to make explicit a subtle but important paradigm shift that has occurred in the last few years when thinking about the nature and causes of obesity. Specifically, a paradigm shift from the view that the cause of obesity is an energy imbalance to the view that obesity is better explained as a metabolic dysfunction. This shift in thinking has become implicit in large parts of the research community, but is less pervasive among front-line clinicians, the media, policy makers, politicians, and the general public. The objective here is to make explicit the narrative of this paradigm shift and so aid the diffusion of the new paradigm and so influence thinking about therapy. Put simply, eating too much doesn’t cause obesity; rather obesity causes eating too much.