Why are we fat?

In 1584, artist and writer Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo wrote that “merchants and bankers who have never seen a drawn sword and who should probably appear with quill pens behind their ears, their gowns about them and their day-books in front of them, have themselves been painted in armour holding generals’ batons.” As Lomazzo’s quote implies, arms and armour were no longer reserved for the battlefield in 16th Century Italy. Using records from the city’s state archives and other sources, my talk will investigate both the cultural and practical significance of arms and armour in Renaissance Florence.

The recent increase in obesity is due to dramatic changes in our environment over the past 50 years. However, not all of us are obese. Genetic differences mean we respond differently to the environment, allowing us to use genetics as a tool to understand the mechanisms underlying obesity. Some of us are slightly more hungry all the time and so eat more than others. In contrast to the prevailing view, obese people are not bad and lazy; rather, they are fighting their biology. Society has to accept this, before we can form successful strategies to tackle this largest of public health problems.

The talk will highlight my work on identifying the cues in our environments that elicit unhealthy behaviour (consumption of tobacco, alcohol, food and sedentary behaviour), often without our awareness. I will focus on Size as a cue to overconsumption and discuss how we can “downsize” our environments.