Obesity and Willpower
Many people seem to think that weight gain and obesity are caused by a lack of willpower.
That’s not entirely true. Although weight gain is largely a result of eating behavior and lifestyle, some people are at a disadvantage when it comes to controlling their eating habits.
The thing is, overeating is driven by various biological factors like genetics and hormones. Certain people are simply predisposed to gaining weight.
1. Genetics
Obesity has a strong genetic component. Children of obese parents are much more likely to become obese than children of lean parents.
That doesn’t mean that obesity is completely predetermined. What you eat can have a major effect on which genes are expressed and which are not.
2. Engineered Junk Foods
Heavily processed foods are often little more than refined ingredients mixed with additives.
These products are designed to be cheap, last long on the shelf and taste so incredibly good that they are hard to resist.
3. Food Addiction
Many sugar-sweetened, high-fat junk foods stimulate the reward centers in your brain.
In fact, these foods are often compared to commonly abused drugs like alcohol, cocaine, nicotine and cannabis.
Junk foods can cause addiction in susceptible individuals. These people lose control over their eating behavior, similar to people struggling with alcohol addiction losing control over their drinking behavior.
4. Aggressive Marketing
Junk food producers are very aggressive marketers.
Their tactics can get unethical at times and they sometimes try to market very unhealthy products as healthy foods.
These companies also make misleading claims. What’s worse, they target their marketing specifically towards children.
5. Insulin
Insulin is a very important hormone that regulates energy storage, among other things.
One of its functions is to tell fat cells to store fat and to hold on to the fat they already carry.
Sugar
Added sugar may be the single worst aspect of the modern diet.
That’s because sugar changes the hormones and biochemistry of your body when consumed in excess. This, in turn, contributes to weight gain.
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