I came across the slime mould article some time ago via the Marginal Revolution blog. I do not find it in the least convincing. It seems to me they have their theory, then cherry pick and misinterpret all evidence to fit.
This is what I thought when I read the SMTM papers too. “People are eating more calories but that’s not why they weigh more” okay hmmmm...
Not that I think CICO is the only factor, and that’s important! The leptin resistance and the insulin resistance hypotheses both make sense, for example.
Here’s another compounding factor (pun intended):
We know that it takes more energy to sustain greater mass, which is part of why people get really excited about CICO (“if I just consume less energy, my body will naturally resolve to a smaller mass”) and then disappointed when it doesn’t work out quite as planned (“wait my body is naturally resolving to tired?”).
And yes, when my body weight was 22% more than current, I was hungrier. Full-stop.
But here’s where the numbers get interesting. We know that many hyperpalatable foods have been hyperengineered to hit ever-increasing bliss points (go read Salt, Sugar, Fat), which means that an Oreo Double Stuf gives you 70 calories per cookie vs the original Oreo’s 50 calories per cookie.
So it compounds—you’re hungrier because you have more mass to maintain, and the food you’re eating has more calories but you don’t realize it first because the size of the food is the same as it’s always been and second because the food has been engineered to not feel rich/heavy/filling (so you’ll eat more of it, go read Salt, Sugar, Fat again).
Then mass increases, then hunger increases, and if you eat 4 Oreo Double Stufs instead of 3 you’re getting 280 cals instead of 210 whereas if you’d eaten 4 Original Oreos instead of 3 you’d have only gotten 200 cals instead of 150.
I came across the slime mould article some time ago via the Marginal Revolution blog. I do not find it in the least convincing. It seems to me they have their theory, then cherry pick and misinterpret all evidence to fit.
My personal thoughts on their theory here: https://www.livenowthrivelater.co.uk/2021/09/is-the-obesity-epidemic-a-mystery-part-1/
https://www.livenowthrivelater.co.uk/2021/09/is-the-obesity-epidemic-a-mystery-part-2/
This is what I thought when I read the SMTM papers too. “People are eating more calories but that’s not why they weigh more” okay hmmmm...
Not that I think CICO is the only factor, and that’s important! The leptin resistance and the insulin resistance hypotheses both make sense, for example.
Here’s another compounding factor (pun intended):
We know that it takes more energy to sustain greater mass, which is part of why people get really excited about CICO (“if I just consume less energy, my body will naturally resolve to a smaller mass”) and then disappointed when it doesn’t work out quite as planned (“wait my body is naturally resolving to tired?”).
And yes, when my body weight was 22% more than current, I was hungrier. Full-stop.
But here’s where the numbers get interesting. We know that many hyperpalatable foods have been hyperengineered to hit ever-increasing bliss points (go read Salt, Sugar, Fat), which means that an Oreo Double Stuf gives you 70 calories per cookie vs the original Oreo’s 50 calories per cookie.
So it compounds—you’re hungrier because you have more mass to maintain, and the food you’re eating has more calories but you don’t realize it first because the size of the food is the same as it’s always been and second because the food has been engineered to not feel rich/heavy/filling (so you’ll eat more of it, go read Salt, Sugar, Fat again).
Then mass increases, then hunger increases, and if you eat 4 Oreo Double Stufs instead of 3 you’re getting 280 cals instead of 210 whereas if you’d eaten 4 Original Oreos instead of 3 you’d have only gotten 200 cals instead of 150.
Cycle cycle cycle.
also any discussion of CICO is incomplete without Vi Hart’s video of how food companies juke the numbers:
I love this video. Other commenters who aren’t familiar: you might really enjoy this video; give it a shot.