It’s All Mom’s Fault

At RealClearScience physiologist Edward Archer argues that the upswing in obesity is not caused by what we’re eating but by changes in how our bodies react to what we’re eating:

Foods and beverages are a sine qua non for life — everyone must eat and drink. Yet just as water does not cause drowning because not everyone who drinks, bathes, or swims, drowns — diet does not cause poor metabolic health because not everyone who eats and drinks becomes obese or diabetic. Yet in contrast to the perfect correlation between water and drowning, there is no clear correlation between diet and obesity.

For example, muscular, male athletes consume more calories, ‘carbs’, sugars, salt, fat, cholesterol, and ‘ultra-processed’ foods than obese, sedentary women, yet have lower levels of adiposity and T2DM. Thus, more foods, beverages, and physical activity are linked with better health and less disease. Clearly, athletes’ bodies ‘handle’ their diets differently than those of sedentary people. Therefore, metabolism — not diet — is the ‘difference that makes a difference’ in health.

and

Stated simply, consuming dietary sugar increases everyone’s blood sugar — but not everyone’s blood sugar returns to ‘normal’ after a meal (e.g., diabetics). Thus, the diet-induced increase in blood sugar is irrelevant to cardiometabolic health because it is not the ‘difference that makes a difference’. What matters are the metabolic differences that cause blood sugar to decrease — or not — after a meal.

Yet most importantly, as a recent “intensive food-as-medicine program” showed, altering your diet has little effect on cardiometabolic health over time, whereas adequate physical activity “obliterates the deleterious effects of a high-caloric intake”. This explains why muscular athletes can consume massive amounts of calories, ‘carbs’, and ‘ultra-processed’ foods yet remain lean and healthy.

In sum, differences in metabolism — not diet — cause differences in cardiometabolic health.

and points the finger directly at mothers:

Importantly, if a woman’s physical activity is too low, her metabolism will be too weak to ‘handle’ pregnancy and she will consume too many calories. As a result, her children will be born fatter and with weaker metabolisms. In other words, they ‘inherit’ a life-long predisposition to obesity and cardiometabolic diseases. [Note: the non-genetic process of inheritance by which a mother’s prenatal metabolism irreversibly alters her descendants’ metabolism is known as a ‘maternal-effect’].

Consequently, the fact that women ’move less’ than they did five decades ago explains the recent rise in ‘inherited’ (childhood) obesity and adolescent T2DM. For example, from 1965 to 2010, the time women spent doing housework decreased by ~2 hours per day while sedentary time increased by 1 hour/day. This reduced the number of calories burned by ~250/day and doubled the amount of time spent sitting. By 2020, women spent more time sitting in front of the TV and using social media than cooking, cleaning, childcare, exercise, and laundry combined. As a result, their metabolisms became weaker — and because metabolic strength is essential for a healthy pregnancy, the decline produced successive generations of obese children with weak metabolisms.

I haven’t bothered to read Dr. Archer’s research. Consequently, I can’t judge whether what he’s saying is right, wrong, or something in between. I suspect it’s something in between.

For one thing I have a problem with some of his comparisons:

Importantly, all humans start life consuming ~40% of their daily calories as dietary sugars and 25% as saturated fat — either in breast milk or infant formula (an ‘ultra-processed’, sugar-sweetened beverage with ‘added’ sugars, salts, and fats). Thus, recommendations to restrict ‘added’ sugars and ‘processed’ foods would prevent the feeding of most infants in industrialized nations. And contrary to current rhetoric, nations with the highest rates of sugar-sweetened beverage (formula) consumption by infants have the lowest rates of obesity and cardiometabolic diseases (Japan and Norway). Moreover, sugars added to foods and beverages enter the same metabolic pathways as intrinsic sugars. Thus, the glucose molecules in breast milk and the fructose molecules in fruit are exactly the same glucose and fructose molecules as in soda, sports drinks, and your favorite candy. This basic fact of biochemistry shows that the term ‘added sugar’ has no place in scientific discourse.

He also compares the Amish in the United States with other Americans. Now, I haven’t checked and things may be much different in Amish country than they used to be but if I recall correctly no Amish people are either black or Hispanic. According to the National Institutes of Health:

• More than 2 in 5 non-Hispanic white adults (42.2%) have obesity.
• Nearly 1 in 2 non-Hispanic Black adults (49.6%) have obesity.
• More than 1 in 6 non-Hispanic Asian adults (17.4%) have obesity.
• Nearly 1 in 2 Hispanic adults (44.8%) have obesity.

I’m not pointing fingers or fat-shaming anyone, just pointing out what should be obvious: it is quite likely there is a genetic component to obesity. Consequently, let’s take a look at China:

Rather clearly something has happened. What? As it turns out there is no single good answer but rather lots of answers: what they’re eating, how much they’re eating, their grandparents are feeding them too much.

I would speculate that obesity is multi-factorial including but not limited to

• Eating out (restaurant portions are frequently too large)
• How much we’re eating
• What we’re eating
• Heredity
• Maternal behavior and agew
• Sedentary habit
• Intestinal flora (maybe too many antibiotics?)