geb@cadre.ARPA (Gordon E. Banks) (08/07/85)
Certainly the statement that laziness is the cause of obesity is a false generalization. The opinion of obesity researchers is that obesity has a multifactorial etiology. The most important components seem to be heredity and conditioned behavior regarding food (compulsive eating). For those who tend to be obese, excercise alone is almost always insufficient to control weight (barring marathon running or other extremes) because the appetite merely increases to compensate for the expended energy. Obese people apparently have larger appetites, and if they do try to maintain a lean weight, have to restrict themselves to lower than a normal person's intake, because their metabolic requirements adjust to attempt to maintain the fat. This may be on the basis of humoral factors that are secreted by fat cells themselves, but these have yet to be discovered, so this remains speculative. The person who has obese tendencies must either let nature take its course or commit themselves to a life-long program of dieting, although excercise is certainly recommended as a adjunct.