An interesting quote from the article. Reading it all before jumping to conclusions is generally a good idea.
But why would people like Ms. Parker have such thoughts?
Researchers suspect the answer lies in an elusive concept called the set point.
The idea arose from studies in the 1940s. Researchers discovered that if they got rodents to gain or lose weight, the animals would quickly return to their starting weight when the study ended. The same thing seemed to happen with people.
That led to the concept that became known as the set point. It says that each person has a weight their body naturally gravitates toward — their set point. It can change over a person’s lifetime. For some, the set point may malfunction, reaching such a high level that a person’s health is affected by excess weight.
Most every single person I know who has lost weight gained it back over time (save for my friend who’s developed an eating disorder, which is a different extreme, of course) — sometimes more than their starting point, so I find the concept intuitive and believable.
Any time a person tries to get their weight much below their set point, researchers have observed, food noise will kick in. That may be part of a physiological process. When weight is lost, the body’s metabolism slows so a person needs less food than would be expected to maintain their weight. At the same time, the researchers have noticed, food noise kicks in, compelling a person to eat more calories than the body can handle without storing some as fat. That’s why diets almost always fail in the long run.
And food noise is not restricted to people with obesity, researchers stress. Anyone can have it if their weight falls below the body’s preferred set point.
Dr. Jules Hirsch at Rockefeller University and his colleagues Dr. Rudolph Leibel and Dr. Michael Rosenbaum at Columbia saw that effect decades ago when they studied the metabolic and behavioral changes that occurred when people lost weight.
Their subjects lived at the Rockefeller hospital and stayed on a low-calorie diet until they lost at least 10 percent of their weight. Some studies involved people with obesity but others involved people of normal weight.
But although the participants’ weights were lower when they left the hospital, they had the physiological signs of starving people. Their metabolisms were low, and they dreamed and fantasized about food. And they binged when they were no longer subjected to an enforced diet. It was a condition so extreme it became called “semi-starvation neurosis.”
The situation was, Dr. Leibel said, “a perfect storm for weight regain."
I suppose when the set point is so high that it is unhealthy these drugs can help. Of course, you’re on them forever ever. Forever ever?
Forever ever.
