Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Perspective
  • Published:

Behaviour, energy balance, obesity and capitalism

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 72, pages 1305–1309 (2018)Cite this article

Subjects

It is fair to say that much of the landscape in the field of nutrition is dominated by the problem of obesity. Despite a massive surge in research on obesity over the last 50 years, the prevalence of obesity, in the United States, for example, has risen from 18% of the population in 1980 to over 40% today. In a book review published in the Lancet [1] it was reported that in the previous decade over 22k articles had been published with the word ‘obesity’ in the title, and over 66k if the search included the title and the abstract. It seems that the more the research being done the worse the problem becomes. Should this be worrying? The existence of obesity is paradoxical in a field apparently governed by principles of regulation and homeostasis; if these principles operate effectively, how can obesity develop? The concept of energy balance (EB), which is a natural way to conceptualise obesity, has been dismissed by many on the grounds that application of these principles is not effective. The widespread acceptance of the principle of biological reductionism plus the idea that obesity is a disease suggest molecular causes.

However, the principles of EB can be shown to effectively reduce obesity when applied coercively and with sufficient force. For example, historical evidence has demonstrated that the economic blockade of Cuba from 1980 to 2005 caused a shortage of food and fuel in that country. This meant that people ate less and walked more [2]; daily energy intake (EI) dropped from 2899 to 1863 kcal, and the percentage of physically active people rose from 30 to 67%. These effects caused the prevalence of obesity to fall from 14 to 7% with improvements in diabetes, coronary heart disease and stroke. In addition, the Look Ahead trial, which applied multiple techniques to reduce EI and increase energy expenditure (EE), produced large reductions in BMI and fat mass without any surgical or pharmacological intervention [3]. Therefore, large interventions—either deliberate or accidental—are effective.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Swinburn BA, et al. The global obesity pandemic: shaped by global drivers and local environments. The Lancet. 2011;387:804–14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Franco M, et al. Impact of energy intake, physical activity, and population-wide weight loss on cardiovascular disease and diabetes mortality in Cuba, 1980–2005. Am J Epidemiol. 2007;166:1374–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Espeland M, et al. Reduction in weight and cardiovascular disease risk factors in individuals with type 2 diabetes: one-year results of the look AHEAD trial. Diabetes Care. 2007;30:1374–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Jeffries S. Grand hotel abyss: the lives of the Frankfurt School. London, New York: Verso Books; 2016.

  5. Speakman JR. If body fatness is under physiological regulation, then how come we have an obesity epidemic? Physiology. 2014;29:88–98.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Bich L, et al. Biological regulation: controlling the system from within. Biol Philos. 2016;31:237–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Pond CM. The fats of life. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 1998.

  8. Wells JC. The evolution of human fatness and susceptibility to obesity: an ethological approach. Biol Rev. 2006;81:183–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Dulloo AG, Jacquet J, Girardier L. Poststarvation hyperphagia and body fat overshooting in humans: a role for feedback signals from lean and fat tissues. Am J Clin Nutr. 1997;65:717–23.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Blundell J. The contribution of behavioural science to nutrition: Appetite control. Nutr Bull. 2017;42:236–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Gill S, Panda S. A smartphone app reveals erratic diurnal eating patterns in humans that can be modulated for health benefits. Cell Metab. 2015;22:789–98.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Zeevi D, et al. Personalized nutrition by prediction of glycemic responses. Cell. 2015;163:1079–94.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Stubbs R, et al. Rate and extent of compensatory changes in energy intake and expenditure in response to altered exercise and diet composition in humans. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2004;286:350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Blundell JE, Finlayson G. Food addiction not helpful: the hedonic component–implicit wanting–is important. Addiction. 2011;106:1216–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Swinburn B, Sacks G, Ravussin E. Increased food energy supply is more than sufficient to explain the US epidemic of obesity. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009;90:1453.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Blundell J. Physical activity and appetite control: can we close the energy gap? Nutr Bull. 2011;36:356–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Hall KD, Guo J. Obesity energetics: body weight regulation and the effects of diet composition. Gastroenterology. 2017;152:1718–27. e3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Judt T. Ill fares the land: a treatise on our present discontents.. UK: Penguin; 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Bauman Z. Work, consumerism and the new poor. UK: McGraw-Hill Education; 2004.

  20. de Castro JM, Plunkett S. A general model of intake regulation. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2002;26:581–95.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Edholm OG, et al. The energy expenditure and food intake of individual men. Br J Nutr. 1955;9:286–300.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Edholm O. Energy balance in man. Studies carried out by the Division of HumanPhysiology, National Institute for Medical Research. J Human Nutr. 1977;31:413–31.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Mayer J, Roy P, Mitra K. Relation between caloric intake, body weight, and physical work: studies in an industrial male population in West Bengal. Am J Clin Nutr. 1956;4:169.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Blundell JE, et al. Body composition and appetite: fat-free mass (but not fat mass or BMI) is positively associated with self-determined meal size and daily energy intake in humans. Br J Nutr. 2012;107:445–9.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Blundell JE, et al. Role of resting metabolic rate and energy expenditure in hunger and appetite control: a new formulation. Dis Models Mech. 2012;5:608–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Weise CM, et al. Body composition and energy expenditure predict ad-libitum food and macronutrient intake in humans. Int J Obes. 2014;38:243–51.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Caudwell P, et al. Resting metabolic rate is associated with hunger, self-determined meal size, and daily energy intake and may represent a marker for appetite. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013;97:7–14.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Hopkins M, et al. Modelling the associations between fat-free mass, resting metabolic rate and energy intake in the context of total energy balance. Int J Obes (Lond). 2016;40:312–8.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Hopkins M, Blundell JE. Energy balance, body composition, sedentariness and appetite regulation: pathways to obesity. Clin Sci. 2016;130:1615–28.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Blundell J, et al. The biology of appetite control: do resting metabolic rate and fat-free mass drive energy intake? Physiol Behav. 2015;152:473–8.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. McNeil J, et al. Investigating predictors of eating: is resting metabolic rate really the strongest proxy of energy intake? Am J Clin Nutr. 2017;106:1206–12.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  32. Lam YY, Ravussin E. Variations in energy intake: it is more complicated than we think. Am J Clin Nutr. 2017;106:1169–70.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  33. Prentice AM, Jebb SA. Fast foods, energy density and obesity: a possible mechanistic link. Obes Rev. 2003;4:187–94.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  34. Stubbs R, Whybrow S. Energy density, diet composition and palatability: influences on overall food energy intake in humans. Physiol Behav. 2004;81:755–64.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  35. Stubbs J, Ferres S, Horgan G. Energy density of foods: effects on energy intake. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2000;40:481–515.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  36. Stubbs RJ, et al. Potential effects of fat mass and fat-free mass on energy intake in different states of energy balance. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2018;72:698.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Hopkins M, et al. Biological and psychological mediators of the relationships between fat mass, fat-free mass and energy intake. Int J Obes. 2018; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-018-0059-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Finegood DT, Merth TD, Rutter H. Implications of the foresight obesity system map for solutions to childhood obesity. Obesity. 2010;18:S13–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chair of PsychoBiology, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    John Blundell

Authors
  1. John Blundell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John Blundell.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Blundell, J. Behaviour, energy balance, obesity and capitalism. Eur J Clin Nutr 72, 1305–1309 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-018-0231-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-018-0231-x

Search

Advanced search

Quick links