The Strong Men ™ – Men's Coaching

Quite frankly, I’m fed up with fat loss.

The fitness industry is obsessed with fat loss. Pretty much everything in the industry revolves around this topic – from questionable “transformation” pictures under dodgy lighting to ’12-Week Summer Shred’ programs – you can’t hide from it.

As a young PT, I felt really uneasy with this focus but felt like I had to prove my worth as a PT. Seeing as I’m not built like a brick shithouse, it meant getting ‘before and afters’ pictures of my clients.

I remember my first ever session with my first ever client awkwardly asking if we could take some ‘before’ pictures. They agreed but it felt wrong.

For me, exercise is FAR more than just losing weight. I knew that by focusing on fat loss alone I was overlooking all the other incredible benefits of exercise all while reinforcing harmful ideas about what value and success look like.

But I took those pictures anyway because I felt pressured, believing that it was something expected of a good Personal Trainer. Thankfully, this practice quickly fell by the wayside as the fitness industry’s constant noise about fat loss began to deafen me.

It’s for that reason that rarely do I discuss topics such as obesity and weight loss. The fitness industry is already oversaturated with fat loss ‘experts’ and I hesitate to add to the noise and confusion around fat loss and obesity.

But, last week I came across an article on the BBC that mentioned that global estimates published in The Lancet now suggest that over a billion people worldwide are now dealing with obesity.

As I sat and reflected on what I was reading, I felt a growing sense of anger and frustration, not directed at the people who face the challenges of obesity, but at those in government.

They absolutely fail to recognise, empathise and understand how to effectively help people in this position and that is particularly frustrating as someone who works with people who struggle with their bodyweight. We’ll come back to this later.

Before that I want to get clear on something… and this may well be controversial (but it’s true so I don’t care).

Forget What You Think You Know About Obesity

Obesity IS NOT a choice. Obesity IS NOT a lack of discipline. Obesity IS a disease.

If you think that those who are obese ‘don’t want it enough’, are lazy, or use genetics as an excuse, you’re clueless. And if you ever shame or judge someone for being overweight, you can kindly get tae f*ck.

Because the truth is, your bodyweight IS influenced by genetics.

‘Fitfluencers’ will continue to spout their usual pish, telling you about you need to work hard to achieve a physique like theirs… but the fact of the matter is that some people do find it easier to stay in shape than others.

Don’t believe me? Then brace yourself cause here come the scientific articles to support my point – articles you likely won’t bother clicking on or reading – but your man here likes to be ethical and demonstrate that he’s not talking out his arse.

So, here goes…

Research suggests that 40-70% of why you weigh what you weigh can be explained by your genetics and that there is a strong correlation between your Body Mass Index (BMI) and your parents BMI.

For those of you who don’t know, I come from a family of six. Four brothers and two sisters. Aye, big family, I know.

Despite the fact that we all live different lifestyles these days, we all still share a fairly similar body shape and bodyweight.

Now, you could argue that we were all brought up similarly, learned good habits, and established a healthy lifestyle in our early years and this explains why we’ve all controlled our weight… and you might be right to a degree, environment likely does play a role.

But, does environment play a greater role than genetics?

It doesn’t appear so.

One study looked at sets of twins – both twins raised together and twins raised apart.

If environment plays a major role in maintaining healthy weight, you’d expect to see differences in bodyweight among twins raised apart – due the fact they were brought up in different environments.

However, results indicated that twins who grew up apart, were very similar in terms of their BMI. This study concluded that while genetics strongly influenced BMI, the childhood environment had ‘minimal impact’.

Another study focusing on adopted children also found that they were more likely to have a bodyweight that closely resembled their biological parents rather than their adoptive parents.

Once again, if environment plays a greater impact on bodyweight than genetics, you’d expect these children to have a bodyweight more similar to their adoptive parents, not their biological ones.

So it’s clear, genetics matter and some people are more genetically disposed to weighing more than others.

Of course, this isn’t to say you can’t intervene or significantly improve your bodyweight or composition, rather that it might be more challenging for some than others – it’s crucial we keep this in mind.

A Surface Level Approach

Let us now return to my anger and frustration and consider the government’s ‘interventions’ to ‘tackle’ obesity over the past number of few decades.

Some of their strategies have included the Sugar Tax, Calorie Reduction Program, The Eatwell Guide, The Change4Life Campaign, Calories on Menus, Attempting To Ban ‘Junk Food’ Ads, Active Travel Initiatives, the list goes on and on…

Yet, obesity rates in the Scotland only continue to rise.

In Scotland, the latest survey suggest that 31% of adults are obese a rise of 4.2% from 2008 and it’s estimated that these levels reach 40% by 2030.

So clearly these strategies are not working and these approaches are missing something critical.

In my opinion, it’s this surface level approach that they choose to consistently take.

If they genuinely believe that increasing awareness and education is the answer, that raising the prices of a can of coke and displaying the calorie content of a cheeseburger will somehow solve the obesity epidemic, they are deluded. Totally deluded.

People who are obese don’t need to be reminded that that they are obese and don’t need to be patronised either.

They know the challenges and difficulties of being overweight better than anyone and have likely exhausted every avenue in an attempt to bring their bodyweight down.

So, telling them to ‘Eat Well, Move More, Live Longer’ (literally the catchphrase of the Change4Life Campaign) isn’t just unhelpful, it’s insulting.

Most already know the choices they should be making – the difficult is in making that choice and being able to do so consistently.

And what is it that gets in the way of making the ‘right’ choices?

It’s a mix of past experiences, learned behaviours, coping strategies, emotional understanding, capacity, ability to regulate — a complex interplay of factors.

This is why the government’s surface level approach WILL NEVER WORK – it does not address the root cause of behaviours that keep people in this place of struggling with their weight.

Whether it’s the inability to control eating, breaking free from a sedentary lifestyle, improving sleep, or addressing problematic substance use, it does not go far enough. Not even close.

If the government is genuinely committed to addressing obesity, they need to dig deeper and begin offering psychological support to help people understand the root causes of their problematic behaviours. Unless these issues are addressed, people will never be in the position to make lasting change…

… and we’ll be left with more stigmatising, shame-inducing government strategies that worsen the problem, not solve it.