From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2014-03-08:
"The previous belief of many lay people and health professionals that obesity is simply the result of a lack of willpower and an inability to discipline eating habits is no longer defensible."
-- Richard L. Atkinson, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Wisconsin. Quoted in David Berreby's essay "The obesity era".
[ http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/david-berreby-obesity-era/]
(submitted to the mailing list by Kelly Groves)
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Definitely systemic influences, not just individual will.
The debunking of "the purely thermodynamic model" reminds me of a mailing list discussion where a physicist who had lost weight went from telling us all it was so easy, just have some discipline exercise more and eat less, so hammering at every single person (mostly women) on the list who pointed out that biology is not the same as physics or asked him to drop the fat-shaming, whether we pointed out systemic concerns, teenage anorexia, or shared deeply personal stories (he was in some ways a friend -- not as much of one as we'd thought) to try to get him to wake up and stop preaching at us. He just kept repeating himself and portraying himself as innocently trying to help us. He never really acknowledged the damage he'd done to us and friendships, more "well if it upsets you so much I'll step back a bit" after I told him flat-out on the list that he was doing harm.