Eating Too Much

My research area of interest is obesity and chronic disease.  (I am purposefully leaving physical activity and sedentary behavior to the side - they are also related to chronic disease and all cause mortality.  I exercise more and sit less than most people I know - thus it is a personal passion of mine, just not a professional one.  I continue to review all chronic disease research but my own research will address obesity)
That being said.  Obesity is a state of excess body fat and it can be determined with a BMI but the better measure is waist to hip ratio.  This can be found in multiple past blog posts. (you can find them in the search this blog box)  The state of being overweight or obese is related to over consumption.  Eating too much.  But here is where the simplicity ends and where my area of interests peak (because I have more than one).

Why do people eat more than they need?  I can give you a list of about 30 reasons, my colleagues could add more and still more are as of yet undiscovered. 
It is important to know that the reasons can be biological, individual, societal, environmental, structural, psychological, and educational.
We, as individuals,  do not need the same amount of calories even when holding everything else constant.  We are just different.  So we start at one unique place - and then we go about our lives doing different things in different ways.  We may have a low metabolism, we may be on a medication, we may need less calories because of a genetic imperfection.  
One of the main issues however is that we do not KNOW our conditions- we have a lack of insight into the amount of calories our own body needs. Another central issue is a lack of knowledge or education on calories in general and calories in foods.  Until recently, access to labels that explain nutrient content have been sparse.

Even those that have understanding, knowledge and will may not have the opportunity to use any of it. Some of us do not have choices of what to buy or how to cook it.  For example, people who eat at soup kitchens, work sites and schools - they have to make the best of whatever the option is.

But this last one may be the most frustrating because it is the easiest (relatively speaking) to control. Some of us consistently eat when we are not hungry.  Social pressures to eat exist in many cultures and environments. All of this is said to get to this example.

In one of my classes, which contains only women, the instructor and some of the students bring food to share (every week).  We sit at a long conference table during our lesson.  The food choices are often cookies, fruit, cheese, nuts and candies.  The class meets at 1pm.  I always bring my lunch to this class.  Some of my classmates also bring their lunch.  I remember the first or second day when one of my classmates ate a very nice salad.  A while later, the teacher passed out cookies.  This young lady (overweight) took a few and later a few more.  Because observation IS a research skill - I pay attention to these things.  I thought, dang, she did so well with her salad and now she just added 300 calories to it.

This past week gives another example of why obesity happens.  It was the typical class with foods on the table and some of us eating lunch.  The lady next to me had a sandwich from subway.  After everyone had eaten the snacks and maybe their lunches, another professor stopped in and said she had extra pizza and put two boxes on the table.  The lady who had just finished the sandwich said "oh well, I might be hungry later," and ate some pizza.  So did many others.

So - that's a problem.  Eating when we are not hungry - another reason we take in more calories than our body needs. 

(PS - I know MOM - if you're still reading this - it went a little long - sorry)