Empowered Health Course · Lesson 23 · 3:16
To re-emphasize: obesity is not a moral failing or a matter of willpower. People living with weight have all sorts of different levels of discipline — and so do people who aren't. Some lean people don't exercise at all and may be quite frail for their age, yet live in a smaller body. Some people living with weight are extremely disciplined, with high fitness and excellent nutrition, and still have the condition of obesity and need treatment. Others — whether because of body weight or something else — don't have that same drive to be active, due to physical limits or simply something inside, just like a thin person who doesn't want to exercise. These things are independent of our discipline.
What obesity really is, is a collision between our appetite center — a system designed to avoid starvation, built by genes that evolved over time — and our food environment, which we consider "obesogenic," or weight-promoting. That naturally pushes up the body's thermostat for weight.
So obesity is not a moral failing, a character flaw, or an issue of willpower. Going forward, it's about focusing on what you can control: being accountable to your goals, working with the barriers, and using the other tools at hand to treat this real, chronic medical disease.
This transcript has been lightly edited from the video for readability. For the complete experience, please watch the video above.