Today you take a medicine and it takes away your hunger: is obesity over?
I'm not so sure that the solution to obesity is taking a drug, and an expensive one at that...
And there are others that take away your desire to smoke: are we running out of willpower?
During the last 20 years, 38% of humans have become obese, and in 2035, if we project this same rate into the future, half of humanity will have excess weight that is harmful to their health.
That's a lot of fat people.
Some 4 billion people will suffer from obesity across the planet. And one hypothesis to explain it, which you point out now, is that we have lost the willpower to avoid eating too much.
I'm not right?
It is a hypothesis, but another that we have tested is that our willpower is not the same as that of our ancestors. What has changed is the excess supply of food around us: we have appetizing food at our feet and in our pockets all day everywhere.
Should we limit the food offer?
The demonstration that this limitation works is that of tobacco. We verified at the time that we were not able to reduce its consumption with advertising campaigns, but simply by increasing its price – and it is still too cheap – and reducing its points of sale.
How do you know?
Because the fewer tobacco outlets there are and the more expensive it is, the less people smoke. And we have demonstrated it in many countries. The price slows down consumption more than any awareness campaign.
The more difficult it is to abuse a consumption, the less will it requires to limit it?
And that's why I think it's not about great personal or psychological efforts. Reducing addictions is simpler and depends above all on public measures and policies.
Against addiction, public action?
I have dedicated my life to studying the mechanisms that explain our behavior and its relationship with health. For years, we have designed and tested multiple tests with biomarkers to, for example, anticipate the onset of type 2 diabetes or cancer and their interactions with our behavior...
And what have you learned?
That awareness campaigns were not able to change unhealthy behaviors: the patient who ate too much or smoked continued doing so, whether aware or not...
And what about exercising?
It also depends more on the environment and the opportunities to do so than on your will: who exercises on a highway? Who can afford a gym or a house in the countryside or near a nice park?
Whoever sets his mind to it can't achieve it?
The great scientist who managed to defeat cholera was John Snow, who managed to identify that the source of the contagion was in a certain water pump...
Bravo to Dr. Snow.
But that was only the beginning of the end of the epidemic, because to stop it we had to get people to stop using infected water.
As?
If you told people that it was dangerous, but didn't give them any other water, it wasn't easy to convince them with advertisements. Many then could not afford bottled water. So today information campaigns are not enough, we must provide the resources and alternatives to be healthy.
And close contaminated sources?
How to avoid thirst and dirt in those who cannot use others? The water distribution system had to be reformed. And that is also the only effective solution to obesity: reform how we grow, distribute and sell food so that it does not make half the population overweight.
Make junk food, like tobacco, more expensive and with fewer outlets?
The fight against tobacco has been a success or a failure: since 70 years ago it was proven to cause cancer until today, millions of smokers have died from it, and in that time, the health of 20% of the world's population – in Spain 25% – have been harmed by their addiction.
So it's nothing to shout about with joy.
The good news is that 70 years ago one in three humans smoked and today it is one in five. The bad news is: why does anyone still smoke?
Will it be more difficult or easier to implement policies against widespread obesity?
Another good news is that more than a hundred countries, including Spain, are already taking measures against addictive additives, the vending of junk food in schools and offices, the composition of ultra-processed foods...
Doesn't that also depend on each person?
Your willpower to not gain weight will be more effective if junk food is more expensive and less ubiquitous. Junk food and tobacco are still too cheap.
