Obesity can be a risk factor for certain individuals but more research has been pointing towards family history, genetic, and even environmental effects to explain more of the variance for health outcomes over obesity as a standalone variable. It can definitely makes things more complicated but isn’t the single point of health as we’ve made it out to be.
As for the CI/CO, that has also been disproven quite some time ago and continues to perpetuate because it is a simple way to try and understand weight. Here’s another short (non-scientific) article to dive into that: immattersacp.org/…/understand-obesity-before-trea….
In short, individuals vary in how their bodies store and utilize calories and calories themselves vary depending on the source. Some bodies do fall under the fairly simple ci/co addage but the majority do not and continuing to understand it from that lens maintains weight stigma, which we also see as a major contributer to negative health outcomes in individuals living in larger bodies.
While I agree that mental health is a primary issue (it is literally my field of study, practice, and research), I also like to try and share some of the more recent findings and understanding in our field, especially as we continue to learn and correct old findings. I apologize that you’re getting so many long messages but I just find it important to try and speak out where I can, especially after working with and treating folks with eating disorders.
LwL@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Am I misunderstanding something or is that article saying “it’s not CI/CO, it’s actually CI/CO”? The incorrect assumption people make is that somehow the only change to energy intake and expenditure is food and exercise (which we have known for very long to not be the case and it’s insane to me that people believe that), not that the law of conservation of energy somehow doesn’t apply. If you expend more energy than you take in, you will lose weight. But measuring either of these things properly is close to impossible and certainly not as simple as “put your height and weight and what you eat and how much you exercise into a calculator”.
nakedunclothedhuman@lemmy.world 1 month ago
No, that’s the correct interpretation, essentially we’ve simplified the “formula” to be easily digested (ci/co) and people have a tendency to understand it as an easy cut calories or expend more. But as you’ve noted, it’s extremely complex and doesn’t take into account individual needs or variability which makes the generalized health advice of “just lose weight/diet/exercise” pretty unhelpful. Especially as we have no true recommended options that contribute to weight loss with long term maintenance.