(Bonus Episode) Book 101 Review, in its fifth season, features Evan Nadler, the nation’s leading pediatric bariatric surgeon, as my guest sharing his expertise on childhood obesity, surgical innovation, and compassionate approaches to long-term health.

Evan Nadler

A Childhood Obesity Treatment Pioneer on a mission to transform the lives of 100 million people battling this disease.

For over 60 years the conventional wisdom regarding weight control has been a simple energy equation: calories in versus calories out. If one eats more calories than one burn, weight is gained. The corollary is that if one burns more calories than taken in, weight will be lost. Yet diet and exercise programs have failed over and over at both treating individuals with excess weight, and combating the obesity epidemic. Why, because we have been ignoring the complex mechanism behind weight control that the human body has devised to defend its weight and how difficult it is to overcome those mechanisms. I’ve spent my entire academic career treating children with obesity and also studying how fat cells and other organ systems in the body respond to excess weight. I’ve come to realize some basic facts about weight gain and obesity, that everyone should know:

1. Obesity is a disease and not a lifestyle choice.

2. It looks the same on the outside for everyone who has it, but it comes from many different pathways on the inside.

3. Much, if not most, of obesity risk is inherited and not due to factors people are often blaming such as poor food choices or lack of exercise.

3. Individuals have to focus on both prevention and treatment, especially if they are at high risk for developing obesity which is something that can be assessed.

4. Health and weight are not inextricably linked.

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