[Chapter 3] Obesity and Starvation Found Together

What Do We Make of Obese Mothers Whose Children are Starving to Death?

Malnutrition and subnutrition are common disorders in the first two years of life in these areas, and account for almost 25 per cent of all admissions to pediatric wards in Jamaica. Subnutrition continues in early childhood to the early teens. Obesity begins to manifest itself in the female population from the 25th year of life and reaches enormous proportions from 30 onwards -- Rolf Richards, as quoted by Gary Taubes

Most of us believe that some of the blame for the obesity epidemic must fall on what my old Yale professor, Kelly Brownell, described as our “toxic environment” of overabundance. We have access to too much yummy food. We can’t help ourselves.

A modern version of this hypothesis foregrounds “ultraprocessed foods” as the critical element that explains why we eat too much.

That jives with common sense. Who can eat just one Pringle?

But in the spirit of good science, why not at least look for counterexamples? Can obesity develop in places where there is not much food—where entire populations are, in fact, starving?

The surprising answer is YES. This happens all the time, and dozens of examples have been catalogued in gory detail.

Some of this reportage comes courtesy science journalist, Gary Taubes, who wrote about it at length in Good Calories, Bad Calories and lectured on the topic numerous times (for instance, here).

Here’s the gist of what happens in these places:

· The population does not have nearly enough food;

· Many are starving and emaciated;

· Yet obesity is present in a large percentage of people (!)

Taubes highlights this paradox by discussing obese mothers in these populations whose own children are literally starving.

The Banker Model insists that such mothers must be consuming extra calories beyond what they need (perhaps subconsciously), while at the same time allowing their babies to die of malnourishment. Ugh. Maybe?

But consider:

1) These mothers are living in areas where food is scarce. How, exactly, are such women secretly stowing away excess calories while the rest of their society is desperate for food?

2) The proposition that moms would gorge themselves while allowing their kids to die from malnutrition and, well, not getting enough food goes against everything we know about maternal behavior. That’s just not how motherhood works, in humans or other mammals. But the Banker Model insists this is the only way to understand this observation. The moms’ secret stashes of food (that they lie about or pretend don’t exist) must be SO yummy that they’d rather their kids die than stop snacking. Helluva vending machine selection they must have.

Oof. Disturbing, for sure.

But maybe this is an outlier observation that has a better explanation than the one I’m providing. And is it really that relevant to the real world?

Let’s keep going…