Is Obesity a Genetically Induced Brain Disease?

You may have heard that a piece on the TV program called 60 Minutes recently sparked some controversy. A doctor stated that obesity is a brain disease, and the largest contributor to obesity is genetics. To quote her, "That means if you were born to parents that have obesity, you have a 50-85% likelihood of having the disease yourself even with optimal diet, exercise, sleep management, [and] stress management..." She tells us that lifestyle won't make a difference for genetically flawed people.

The 60 Minutes Program then segues into the new weight-reducing medications, stressing how effective they are, potentially leaving the audience with four takeaways: 1) Obesity is a brain disease. 2) Obesity is genetic 3) Lifestyle changes won't work for the genetically flawed. and 4) Drugs are better than lifestyle changes, especially for the genetically flawed. This post will address these issues and more.

A NEAT Way to Achieve Better Health and Live Longer

Because we don't move very much anymore, the concept of exercise seems much more plausible today. The idea of sitting at a computer desk all day and then spending an hour on a treadmill to make up for all that lack of activity makes total sense. Only, science says it doesn't really. Exercise, in fact, does not counteract the adverse effects of prolonged sitting. In other words, sitting too much is really bad for you. Today I talk about what you can do to avoid the pitfalls of being too sedentary.