Getting fatter on the typical Western diet
Friday, June 1, 2012 at 10:31PM 
Image: Newsweek magazineGary Taubes, an Investigator in Health Policy Research at the Berkley School of Public Health, has been battling conventional wisdom regarding nutrition for years. He has delivered his message in many forums including the 2007 book, Good Calories, Bad Calories and the 2011 book, Why We Get Fat.
His most recent contribution is an article in the May 14 print issue of Newsweek: The New Obesity Campaigns Have It All Wrong. Taubes notes that conventional wisdom regarding the cause of obesity is based on the concept of “energy balance”:
At its heart is a simple “energy balance” idea: we get fat because we consume too many calories and expend too few. If we could just control our impulses – or at least control our environment, thereby removing temptation – and push ourselves to exercise, we’d be fine. This logic is everywhere…”
Unfortunately, the "energy balance" concept is failing us: 42% of American will be fat by 2030. Even NIH Director Francis Collins has difficulty explaining the failure - “We are struggling to figure this out.” Taubes has another view:
There is an alternative theory, one that has also been around for decades but that the establishment has largely ignored. This theory implicates specific foods – refined sugars and grains – because of their effect on the hormone insulin, which regulates fat accumulation. If this hormonal-defect hypothesis is true, not all calories are created equal, as the conventional wisdom holds. And if it is true, the problem is not only controlling our impulses, but also changing the entire American food economy and rewriting our beliefs about what constitutes a healthy diet. (emphasis added)
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