As a nutritionist, I am often asked “What causes obesity?”  The answer is initially simple yet becomes fiendishly complex.  Most scientists will tell you that we gain weight because we eat more calories than we need.  However, WHY we overeat or in some way fail to eat a healthy balanced diet is far more complicated.  When I explain this, I am often met with derision from seemingly intelligent individuals who consider that anyone eating a less than perfect diet is unintelligent, feckless, wilfully negligent and that they are therefore beyond help.  Why should the state intervene to make everyone’s life miserable for the sake those individuals who can’t control themselves?  Here’s why what and how much we eat is not […]