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Diet, not lack of exercise, drives obesity, a new study finds

One explanation for the rise in obesity in industrialized countries is that people burn fewer calories than people in countries where obesity is rare. A major study finds that's not the case.

The assumption is that as a result, we burn fewer calories each day, contributing to an energy imbalance that leads to weight gain over time, says Herman Pontzer, a professor of evolutionary biology and global health at Duke University who studies how human metabolism has evolved. Pontzer's past research has suggested that our bodies tend to adjust how we expend energy to keep our total calorie burn stable within a pretty narrow range. In a subanalysis of the data for some of the populations, Pontzer and his colleagues found that people in countries that got more of their calories from ultra-processed foods tended to have more obesity and higher body fat percentages.

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