Science Writer Gary Taubes: Why We Get Fat (VIDEO)

[ 0 ] July 14, 2011 | Gary Taubes

Watch Gary Taubes at the 2011 Aspen Ideas Festival spend ’2.5 Minutes With genConnect.’ We connected with the science writer and author of Why We Get Fat And What to Do About It.

Click the play button below to watch Claudia Potamkin of genConnect.com interview Taubes regarding the age old question and title of Taubes new book: Why do we get fat? And what can we do about it?

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Gary, why do we get fat? GARY TAUBES: Well, the conventional wisdom is we get fat because we eat too much and exercise too little. And the point I make in this book is that, basically borrowing from a theory of obesity pre-World War II, it is obesity is a hormonal disorder. And we basically change the hormonal milieu of our cells. And it’s the nutrient content of the diet that determines that. And because the hormone insulin regulates fat accumulation, the more insulin you secrete, the more fat you store. And insulin is secreted in response to the carbohydrate content of the diet. So in effect the very simple answer, if you care about biology, is that carbohydrates literally make us fat. And it’s the quantity and the quality of the carbs in the diet. And this is a very old theory. It’s a very old idea. It’s often treated as quackery because, I don’t know why. But if you just look at the again basic endocrinology, basic hormonal regulation, that would be your best bet for why we get fat. And that is not what we have been telling people for 50 years. CLAUDIA POTAMKIN: So is this a unique formula to each person that they would need to go to a doctor and find out what their particular make up is or is this a more general– GARY TAUBES: Well again, the argument I make is that if someone is getting fatter, those of us who are predisposed to get fat do it because of the carbohydrate complement of our diets. And the funny thing is up until the 1960′s, this was conventional wisdom. Carbohydrates were fat: Bread, pasta, potatoes, beer. They called it beer belly because beer causes the condition. Sweets worst of all. And sugar. And I had a cover story in the New York Times Magazine in April about the deleterious effects of sugar and how that sort of transcends the caloric content. And the argument I’m making is that we won’t triumph over our personal weight problems and we certainly won’t get a handle on the obesity epidemic and the diabetes epidemic in the United States unless we realize that there’s this alternative way of looking at it that has a lot of evidence behind. And I would say the bulk of the evidence. It works. CLAUDIA POTAMKIN: Well Gary, thank you so much for being with us here today. You can find out more about Gary on genConnect.com. Thanks for being with us. I’m Claudia Potamkin, genConnect.com.

Originally focusing on physics issues, Gary Taubes writing interests have more recently turned to medicine and nutrition. Taubes is the author of Nobel Dreams, Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion, Good Calories, Bad Calories, and Why We Get Fat. He has won the Science in Society Award of the National Association of Science Writers three times and was awarded an MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship for 1996-97.

genConnect is credentialed press at the 2011 Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colo., where we are interviewing the premier speakers and attendees at the conference. For more of our video interviews and articles from the Ideas Festival, click here.

Sign up for genConnect.com and automatically be entered to win a trip to Aspen! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@genConnected) for additional Ideas Festival coverage (#AspenIdeas)

Tags: Aspen Ideas Festival 2011, carbohydrates, Claudia Potamkin, diet, Exercise, fat, Gary Taubes, genConnect, Good Calories Bad Calories, Health, ideas festival, Nutrition, videos, weight loss, Why We Get Fat

Category: Exercise, Health, Nutrition, Videos, Views on the News, Weight Loss

About Gary Taubes: Gary Taubes is an American science writer. He is the author of Nobel Dreams (1987), Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993), and Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and [...]
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Science Writer Gary Taubes: Why We Get Fat (VIDEO)

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