The Cause of Obesity Diet Doctor has just posted this Lustig video. It provides a more user friendly interview that makes his stance on the insulin problem more easily understood.

No obesity in Auschwitz.

But you are not seriously suggesting that starvation is a suitable remedy for obesity?
this about What comes first

The chicken or the egg?


Diet Doctor sets it out very clearly.
What part of the story don't you get?

If you never understand the cause of overeating and lethargy you are never going to learn how to apply the brakes to appetite or harness the enthusiasm for exercise.

What I'm having trouble understanding is this: Diabetics have insulin resistance which leads to (or is accompanied with) low insulin secretion. When a Diabetic is obese before he knows he is Diabetic (so, not on any drugs or insulin) why is he obese? I can understand this in the Diabetic on drug therapy. But that is not 90% of obese people. There are plenty of people who are non Diabetic who are obese and they don't have brain tumors.

I still believe that a major cause of overeating is an underlying nutrient deficiency, which causes the body to crave food.

I agree.
We are eating too much calorie rich but nutrient poor food.
Our bodies need nutrients rather than calories.

The whole basis of current dietary policy is based on calories in must equal calories out and they simply forget that we have a body temperature set point that the body strives to keep even.

Our paleo ancestors lived without central heating and without light at night and primitive cultures value high fat foods highly. It's the amounts of broken bones (fat rich marrow) that gives archaeologists the clues to finding sites for early humans remains.

From eating the last meal of the day body temperature had to be maintained by burning calories (look up the role of Brown Adipose Tissue and cold induced thermogenesis)

We can restore our body's ability to respond to cold appropriately
Cold Thermogenisis - aka freezing your ass off!

But simply restoring melatonin secretion and turning off the central heating at night can help.

Im not sure if you guys get it in the US but there was a very interesting program about obesity on the BBC (british broadcasting corporation) called the men who made us fat.

I really recommend you watch it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE-H__aIEFE&noredirect=1

It essentially explains how the choices of those in control have had a massive impact on our food consumption and eating habits in the last 100 years.

It really is terrifying stuff the more you watch!!

It's a good series and it is the case that big portions enable faster weight gain however it doesn't get to the crux of the problem and that is WHY do people consume more than is sensible?
It isn't just because the food is available.
Part of the problem is the effect of antiobiotics on gut flora.
More babies are born via c section and don't acquire mothers gut flora during the birth process.
More babies get shorter or no breast feeding and therefore do not pick up natural bacteria.
More mothers and babies have low vitamin D status and don't acquire natural immune function and this results in increased infection rates and increased antibiotic usage and further damages the variety and nature of gut flora.
Meat producers, in order to fatten pigs/chickens faster add antibiotics to feeds, these feeds are mainly GRAIN BASED. So if farmers used cereal based antibiotic laced pellets to ensure animals fatten fast is it surprising that the overuse of antibiotics combined with a reliance on cereal based refined carbohydrate foods is going to have the same effect in humans.
The reason people are hungry and over consume is that their pathogenic gut bacteria are driving appetite and consumption.
ELIMINATING WHEAT from your diet and any food that contains wheat is probably the first step that required to regain control of food intake.
next read wellnessmama
Why You Should NEVER Eat Vegetable Oil or Margarine!
At the same time eliminate wheat, industrially produced omega 6 vegetable oils and sugars/fructose. When these pro inflammatory foods are removed from the diet you'll find that the "good lean type gut flora" rather than pathogenic obesogenic gut flora will be able to predominate and so the weight will come off and control of appetite re-established.
While it is tempting to want to blame others for your own inability to control appetite it's important you understand what is happening in your body that drives your need to consume.
Changing your gut flora requires improving immune function so you never require antibiotics. Antibiotics provide a clean slate for pathogenic gut flora to dominate. Modern industrially processed foods provide the ideal substrate for the proliferation of pathogenic gut flora. It's the ultraprocessing of grains/sugars/oils that enables obese type pathogenic gut flora to control your appetite and the quantity of calories you obtain from the foods you consume. They also change your mood so you want more comfort foods, in the same way they control your desire to move/feelings of lethargy.
So while this is a very good series it still won't help.
Blaming others isn't the solution.
Understanding the root cause of the problem will help.

Also some of the chemical additives in food have an addictive effect, causing you to crave. MSG and hydrolyzed protein are a couple of notorious ones.

Just from my personal experience, when the food allergies got massive, I found my appetite changed from normal to just munching madly. It turns out I was not absorbing many nutrients well, and the body was signalling to keep eating in the false hope it might actually get what it needed.

Now the allergies are removed my appetite is normal again. It used to be a normal portion of quality food wouldn't hold my appetite in check for more than maybe a couple of hours. Weird stuff.

I am sure that is a part of the story. We may be eating too many calories but that does not mean we are meeting the basic requirements for essential nutrients.
Too many modern foods are calorie rich but nutrient poor.

Even the healthy foods aren't what they once were. Too often they're soaked in citric acid as a preservative and shipped so far away there's less food value once you get them.

I'm headed to Michigan to visit family next week. I hope there's enough of a corn crop left I might maybe be able to get something local while I'm there, because there is zero comparison between corn on the cob you get anywhere vs. what you get direct from the farmer a couple of hours after it's been picked.

Although I agree with Ted, especially concerning antibiotic effects on gut bacteria, I think there is more to the problem then excess sugar or fructose.

These items are available to all of us, yet we are not all obese. What does that mean? Don't get me wrong, if you eat 157 pounds of sugar per year you will gain weight... I have no doubt about that...however, the question should be why are people eating so much sugar and other high (empty) calories on a daily basis.

Are people getting lazy? Not exercising enough? I would suggest yes to both questions, but again there is more to being obese than being lazy.

I would suggest the answer lies in cravings, or what is called "pica". This is something that can be seen in the animal world, like the dog that eats grass, or the horse that chews on the wooden gate... and humans, especially pregnant moms who crave pickles and ice cream in the middle of the night.

Our bodies are telling us something with these cravings... we want minerals. we are craving selenium, and zinc, and magnesium, and at least 57 other minerals, none of which can be found in a bag of chips or box of cookies... and this would also explain how you can feel hungry again shortly after eating.

If you get all the nutrients that your body requires, you will feel satisfied, and thus won't overeat or fill up on empty calories day after day.

If you give a "pica" horse minerals, it will stop chewing on the fence.

We should learn something from that.