Why do we get fat?

Professor John Speakman. Hood Fellow Public Lecture

We are in the middle of an international obesity crisis. The causes of the epidemic are often presumed to be traceable to two main culprits. The first is that there has been an increase in sedentary behaviour because of changing work patterns, which leads to a reduction in our energy expenditure. This has been combined with a large expansion in the availability of fast junk foods that are designed to make us overconsume energy. The resultant positive energy balance leads to fat storage and ultimately obesity.

Professor Speakman has pioneered use of an isotope based method to measure our energy expenditure and test the first of these assumptions directly. Moreover, he has worked extensively on epidemiological and food intake data allowing tests of the second assumption. In this talk he will review this hard information and reach some surprising conclusions with implications for individual behaviour and public health policies. The talk will be of interest to anyone who ever ate a MacDonalds.