When I read this article, "learned helplessness" was all I could think of. The author states, incredibly:

[T]here's little evidence that overeating causes obesity on an individual level and no real reason to think that anyone can lose a lot of weight by dieting. (Most of us fluctuate around a natural "set point.") We also know that children who watch a lot of television are no less active than other kids and that pediatric obesity rates are not the direct result of high-fat diets.

That is quite simply the most preposterously, outrageously false claim I have ever read on Slate (and I've read quite a few). Little evidence that overeating causes obesity on an individual level? What planet has the author of this article been living on?

I grew up in a part of the United States where obesity is the norm. I myself used to be obese. Suffice it to say, I have known quite a number of overweight people. I have never met an overweight person who did not get that way by eating more calories than he or she expended in exercise. In fact, it's a logical impossibility.

Fat does not miraculously burst into existence. No, it must be generated from excess calories. Even in the most fat-storage-prone person, it would not be possible to store a significant amount of fat if he or she ate an amount equal to or less than the energy expended each day.

Thermodynamics aside, we all know that as an epidemiological matter, the increases in the caloric value of the American diet (combined with erosion of its nutritional quality) has led to unprecedented levels of obesity throughout the population. How can the author assert that this well-established cause and effect relationship applies only to populations, but not the constituents of the populations? It simply makes no sense.

The only way to explain this belief is that the author, like many of us, has been trained to believe that our fates are sealed by genetics. It's a common refrain: "I just can't do anything about X; it's in my genes." Be it obesity, a bad temper, or infidelity, countless people have reassured themselves they have no choice in the matter. I guess it's comforting to believe that one has no choices and faces no consequences.