Review what is known regarding the roots of obesity. Distinguish between the set point and the settling point hypotheses.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The answer should make reference to the following accounts of obesity:

Some psychologists suggest that oversensitivity to external eating cues based on social factors, coupled with insensitivity to internal hunger cues, produce obesity. Others argue that overweight people have higher weight set points than other people do. Because their set points are unusually high, their attempts to lose weight by eating less may make them especially sensitive to external, food-related cues and therefore more apt to overeat and perpetuate their obesity.
Higher weight set point: Obese individuals may have a higher weight set point than others. One biological explanation is that obese individuals have a higher level of the hormone leptin, which appears to be designed, from an evolutionary standpoint, to "protect" the body against weight loss.
Another biologically based explanation for obesity relates to fat cells in the body. Starting at birth, the body stores fat either by increasing the number of fat cells or by increasing the size of existing fat cells. Furthermore, any loss of weight past infancy does not decrease the number of fat cells; it only affects their size. Consequently, people are stuck with the number of fat cells they inherit from an early age, and the rate of weight gain during the first 4 months of life is related to being overweight during later childhood.
According to the weight-set-point hypothesis, the presence of too many fat cells from earlier weight gain may result in the set point's becoming "stuck" at a higher level than desirable. In such circumstances, losing weight becomes a difficult proposition because one is constantly at odds with one's own internal set point when dieting.
Higher weight settling point: Some researchers argue that the body does not try to maintain a fixed weight set point. Instead, they suggest, the body has a settling point, determined by a combination of our genetic heritage and the nature of the environment in which we live. If high-fat foods are prevalent in our environment and we are genetically predisposed to obesity, we settle into an equilibrium that maintains relatively high weight. In contrast, if one's environment is nutritionally healthier, a genetic predisposition to obesity will not be triggered, and one will settle into an equilibrium in which his or her weight is lower.