Brut McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.

Now there are two dominant theories as to why Westerners have gotten increasingly obese

in the last 50 years.

One is that reading too many carbs and carbs make us fat.

Another is that our primitive appetite, which is wired to gorge and calorically dense foods

as survival mechanism, is misaligned with a modern landscape in which food is available

in an overabundance.

My guest today says that there's too much evidence which contradicts these theories

for them to completely explain the problem of weight gain and forwards a different and

quite surprising theory as to what may be going on instead.

His name is Mark Schatzker and he's the author of the End of Craving, recovering the lost

wisdom of eating well.

In order to arrive at Mark's theory on the rise in obesity, we first unpacked several

pieces of the puzzle each fascinating in its own right.

We discuss how the body, rather than having a natural propensity to gain weight, actually

typically wants to say to healthy set point, the difference between wanting and liking

how obese people crave more food, but enjoy it less and why it is that humans take pleasure

in eating.

We then get into how food additives like artificial sweeteners and, strangely enough, even certain

vitamins may be shifting the body's set point, increasing people's craving for food and

triggering weight gain.

We enter conversation with Mark's countertude of called the fight obesity by thoroughly enjoying

...