Obesity Risk May Be Driven More by What You Eat Than How Much You Exercise

Key Takeaways

People across the globe burn similar daily calories, regardless of lifestyle or activity level.

The "constrained daily energy expenditure" model suggests that the body has a cap on daily energy expenditure.

Easy access to calories and ultra-processed foods likely plays a bigger role in obesity than inactivity.

Obesity is far more common among people living in more economically developed regions than those who live hunter-gatherer or pastoral lifestyles. Health experts have long pointed to sedentary lifestyles in industrialized countries as a significant cause of soaring obesity rates there.

A recent study published in the journal PNAS challenges that assumption. Using massive datasets from dozens of countries, researchers found strong similarities in the daily ener