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Thursday’s Horizon on BBC2 certainly did break new ground. For me, it made compulsive viewing. My thoughts on obesity have already surfaced this year, and my slimming continues [ see On Being Fat ] But it is clear that the scientists are still foundering, with no real sense of direction.
I know where they are going wrong. They have made some progress with gene research, although none of their identified genetic mechanisms specifically affects more than 5% of fat people. More successes will no doubt follow, as the drugs companies desperately search for the holy grail. But they are making no progress with the problem of regaining weight, after a successful weight-loss campaign. Nor do they seem to have any coherent scientific model against which to research, or to differentiate between individuals.
I propose, on the other hand, a coherent theory of obesity. It is derived from my general theory, set out at Multiple Differential Uncertainty. I argue that anxiety is the normal human condition. Anxiety reflects the myriad uncertainties which assail every human being every day. Mankind, as an intelligent sentient being, perceives and understands these uncertainties, and must come to terms with them. Anxiety is therefore normal, and universal.
My theory suggests that there are three primary elements in the obesity equation.
First, genetic predisposition. Nobody can doubt that genes play some part in the process. The Horizon programme confirmed that conclusion, although genetic factors are clearly of limited overall relevance. In my case, I am sure that my genes are part of the explanation. My great-great-grandfather Abraham Cann (born in Devon c 1815) was a 6’8” man-mountain, and he earned his living as a prize wrestler until the sport was made illegal in the 1840s. His 6’4”son, when adult, moved to Swansea to find work in the 1870s, with his 3-year-old son, my grandfather George Cann, who grew up to be a well-built 6’1”.
His only son, my uncle Graham Cann, was a slim 6’1”, and once considered a professional cricket career with Glamorgan. He was always handsome, elegant, and in control of his weight. My mother Mary Cann, and her two sisters, had weight problems, albeit not severe, as does my sister Eleanor. Mary Cann produced me, and I turned out at just over 5’11”. It is clear that, nature having thrown up an exceptionally large Devonian in 1815, I was the smallest in a long-line of big men. My son Owen is 6 ft, but is athletic and has learnt painstakingly to control any inherited propensities he may have. Yes – I have no doubt that genetic predisposition has a role to play in the explanation of obesity, albeit a limited one.
But genetic analysis, shows no sign of explaining why some individuals get fat, and others stay thin. I say that there is all of us a Storage Command , a trigger sent to the body,
instructing it to “store food”. That command is triggered by anxiety, anticipation of tougher times ahead. Some triggers seem “natural”, as the tendency for pregnant women to put on fat, even after giving birth.
In my case I believe that I was the victim of anxiety. The experience of being shipped across to Canada in 1940, under submarine attack, and then returning at the height of the submarine war in 1942 (when I was just six). I even suspect that (albeit not a conscious memory) I may even have blamed my mother for having exposed me to these anxieties, and come to doubt her love for me. I certainly remember incidents which suggest the truth of that perception, perhaps even reinforced by the determination of my ambitious father to “send me away” to boarding-school at the age of 12. That “rejection” may well have caused me anxiety, at a sub-conscious level. Maybe my parents didn't love me, after all... My hypothesis is that event-driven anxiety operates this trigger, giving the fateful storage command to the system. Once in position, the storage command is extraordinarily difficult to turn off. Even in young children, I believe, anxiety and insecurity can have this effect. The upshot is that the body takes every opportunity to lay down fat, as a counter-measure against the anxiety.
The third factor is the reserve quotient . My observation is that the body becomes accustomed to carrying a given amount (“quotient”) of food-reserves, in the form of fat. Fat people find it extraordinarily difficult to get started on the weight-reduction process. I say, that is because once the body has grown accustomed to having reserves, when confronted by weight-loss it gives high priority to restoring the quotient at the earliest possible opportunity. As the quotient-level rises with age, I suspect that it becomes deeply-embedded into the body-system, although I have no idea what sort of mechanism it might be.
The quotient mechanism is also responsible for the awful experience of so many fat people, namely reserve restoration . The Horizon scientists confessed that they had no answer to this demoralising process. Even after significant weight loss, fat people find it extraordinarily difficult to stay thin, and the weight is commonly “put back on”. This is because (I say) the reserve-quotient is remarkably tenacious, drawing the body back to its prior comfort level, in terms of food reserves. The body, having generated the strategy of laying-down fat in order to counter anxiety, likes being fat. Why would it not? It is natural (I say) that the body should strive to re-establish its much-loved reserve quotient.
I am no scientist. But I am a fat logician. And I try, by logic, to make sense of my environment, my experience and my observations.
What do you think of the theory?
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P.S. Obviously, it is perfectly possible by taking thought, to reverse the storage command . In the 26 days since New Year, for example, I have lost 14 lbs - a whole stone, in old money. But that (as all the experts said on Thursday's Horizon programme) is not the real problem. Far more difficult to dislodge will be the storage quotient - and while that remains in place, my storage command may well remain switched on...
