Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T02:58:39.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Obesity is not just elevated adiposity, it is also a state of metabolic perturbation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2017

Jonathan CK Wells
Jonathan CK Wells*
Affiliation:
Childhood Nutrition Research Centre, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London WC1N 1EH, United Kingdom.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Nettle et al. miss the crucial difference between adaptive models of storing energy and explanations for the pathological metabolic state of obesity. I suggest that the association of food insecurity with obesity in women from industrialized settings is most likely due to reverse causation: Poverty reduces agency to resist obesogenic foods, and this scenario is compounded by perturbations of insulin metabolism stemming from high adiposity and lipogenic diets.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e130
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Block, J. P., Scribner, R. A. & DeSalvo, K. B. (2004) Fast food, race/ethnicity, and income: A geographic analysis. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 27(3):211–17.Google Scholar
Danysh, H. E., Gilman, R. H., Wells, J. C., Pan, W., Zaitchik, B., Gonzalez, G., Alvarez, M. & Checkley, W. (2014) El Nino adversely affected childhood stature and lean mass in northern Peru. Climate Change Responses 1:7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drewnowski, A. & Specter, S. (2004) Poverty and obesity: The role of energy density and energy costs. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 79(1):6–16.Google Scholar
Ekman, J. B. & Hake, M. K. (1990) Monitoring starvation risk: Adjustments of body reserves in greenfinches (Carduelis chloris L.) during periods of unpredictable foraging success. Behavioral Ecology 1(1):62–67. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/1.1.62.Google Scholar
Gluckman, P.D. & Hanson, M.A. (2004) The developmental origins of the metabolic syndrome. Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism 15(4):183–87.Google Scholar
Larson, N. I., Story, M. T. & Nelson, M. C. (2009) Neighborhood environments: Disparities in access to healthy foods in the U.S. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 36(1):74–81.Google Scholar
Lustig, R. H. (2006) Childhood obesity: Behavioral aberration or biochemical drive? Reinterpreting the first law of thermodynamics. Nature Clinical Practice Endocrinology and Metabolism 2(8):447–58.Google Scholar
Lustig, R. H. (2008) Which comes first? The obesity or the insulin? The behavior or the biochemistry? Journal of Pediatrics 152:601–02.Google Scholar
Nettle, D., Frankenhuis, W. E. & Rickard, I. J. (2013) The evolution of predictive adaptive responses in human life history. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 280(1766):20131343. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.1343.Google Scholar
Rubino, F., Gagner, M., Gentileschi, P., Kini, S., Fukuyama, S., Feng, J. & Diamond, E. (2004) The early effect of the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass on hormones involved in body weight regulation and glucose metabolism. Annals of Surgery 240(2):236–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wells, J. C. (2006) The evolution of human fatness and susceptibility to obesity: An ethological approach. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 81(2):183–205.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (2009) Ethnic variability in adiposity and cardiovascular risk: The variable disease selection hypothesis. International Journal of Epidemiology 38(1):63–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wells, J. C. (2010a) The evolutionary biology of human body fatness: Thrift and control. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (2010b) Maternal capital and the metabolic ghetto: An evolutionary perspective on the trans-generational basis of health inequalities. American Journal of Human Biology 22:1–17.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (2011a) An evolutionary perspective on the trans-generational basis of obesity. Annals of Human Biology 38:400–409.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (2011b) The thrifty phenotype: An adaptation in growth or metabolism? American Journal of Human Biology 23:65–75.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (2012a) The capital economy in hominin evolution: How adipose tissue and social relationships confer phenotypic flexibility and resilience in stochastic environments. Current Anthropology 53(S6):S466–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, J. C. (2012b) a critical appraisal of the predictive adaptive response hypothesis. International Journal of Epidemiology 41(1):229–35.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (2012c) Ecogeographical associations between climate and human body composition: Analyses based on anthropometry and skinfolds. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 147(2):169–86.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (2012d) Ecological volatility and human evolution: a novel perspective on life history and reproductive strategy. Evolutionary Anthropology 201(21):277–88.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (2012e) The evolution of human adiposity and obesity: Where did it all go wrong? Disease Models and Mechanisms 5(5):595–607.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (2012f) Obesity as malnutrition: The role of capitalism in the obesity epidemic. American Journal of Human Biology 24(3):261–76.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (2012g) Sexual dimorphism in body composition across human populations: Associations with climate and proxies for short- and long-term energy supply. American Journal of Human Biology 24(4):411–19.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. (2016) The metabolic ghetto: An evolutionary perspective on nutrition, power relations and chronic disease. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C., Chomtho, S. & Fewtrell, M. S. (2007) Programming of body composition by early growth and nutrition. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 66:423–34.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. & Cortina-Borja, M. (2013) Different associations of subscapular and triceps skinfold thicknesses with pathogen load: An ecogeographical analysis. American Journal of Human Biology 25(5):594–605.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C., Griffin, L. & Treleaven, P. (2010) Independent changes in female body shape with parity and age: A life-history approach to female adiposity. American Journal of Human Biology 22(4):456–62.Google Scholar
Wells, J. C. & Siervo, M. (2011) Obesity and energy balance: Is the tail wagging the dog? European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 65:1173–89.Google Scholar