It's Not Your Fault: The Real Factors That Control Your Weight

The weight loss industry has convinced us that being fat is a personal failure—a consequence of eating too much and moving too little. But the truth is far more complex and liberating. Your weight is controlled by genetics, epigenetics, environmental factors, trauma, chronic stress, and systems of oppression that were intentionally designed to control marginalized bodies. 

In this episode, I break down the scientific evidence showing why the "calories in, calories out" narrative is a lie, explore how everything from urbanization to discrimination drives weight gain through cortisol, and reveal how this cycle of blame was always rooted in anti-Black racism, capitalism, and misogyny. It's time to shift responsibility from individuals to the systems and institutions whose literal job it is to address these conditions—because you didn't break this, and you shouldn't have to fix it.

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Transcript

Hello, and welcome to Episode 5, Season 6 of the Fat Doctor podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Asher Larmie.

You've probably been told at some point in time to eat less and exercise more. You've been told that you're fat because of something you did or didn't do. And I hate to tell you that's not true. That's just simply not true. The factors that control your weight are very much outside of your control. And so, people have absolutely no business blaming you for the size that you are, and more importantly, you've got no business blaming yourself for the size that you are. And I know that you blame yourself, I don't blame you, I blame myself too. It's just what we've been conditioned to believe.

And it causes a lot of shame, a lot of guilt. A lot of my really good friends who are anti-diet and have been in the fat liberation space, some of them for decades. They know diets don't work, they know all the evidence, and yet, they'll have moments when they just go, oh god, it's all my fault. I know it, it's all my fault, and we have to remind each other on a regular basis, it's not your fault. It's never been your fault.

That's a lie, and this episode, if that's what you're going through, in fact, I want you to save this episode for the future, so that next time you're sitting there thinking, it's all my fault, I did something wrong, I'm fat because I ate too much and didn't exercise enough, I want you to listen to this episode and remind yourself that's not true. The factors that control your weight are as follows.

First and foremost, genetics. Your weight is controlled by your DNA. We inherit our weight in the same way that we inherit our height. Our hair color, our dimples, our eye color. It is inherently heritage. Over the last 20 years or so, we have discovered over 300 variations in DNA that are linked to weight. 300 and counting.

Now, no one blames you for being short. Like, they might make short jokes, but I'm 5'2", I've heard them all. I am 5'2", and I'm surrounded by giants, so I get a lot of short jokes made at my expense. People probably look at my nose, and they're like, hmm, yeah, probably could do with a nose job. Like, that's fine. People might not like my height, and they might not like my nose, but no one blames me for my height, and no one blames me for the shape of my nose.

And no one says, oh, your dimple, you did that, like, did you smile so long and so hard that you developed a dimple? No, they know that I inherited my dimples from my family. I am the same height as my mother was, and her mother was, and my grandmother was on my other side. It's just genetic. DNA is DNA, you know? You can't mess with genetics. But actually, actually, I say that, but there's more to it than that.

Your genes, your DNA, you inherit those things, and from birth until death, your DNA does not change, right? It is a genetic blueprint that is in every single one of your cells, and it doesn't change. However, which genes get switched on, which genes get switched off, which genes get turned up, you know, dial up to 10, and which are much quieter and softer. That does change.

Over the course of your lifetime, it depends on your life experiences, it depends on your environment, and even depends on your ancestors. Fascinating stuff. This is the field of epigenetics, and we're only just about beginning to understand it, and whenever I read something about epigenetics, and I start reading all of the different theories. I'm like, wow, you guys really have no clue yet, do you? Like, you just, you have some theories, but no real understanding of what's going on.

Because the human body is freaking incredible, and no matter how hard we try to understand it, we'll never really fully appreciate how awesome it is. But the thing is that your experiences, imagine you're a sound mixer, right? And you got a song. Well, that's a song with lots and lots of notes and lots and lots of different tracks. You got your drums, you've got your guitar, and your this, and your that, and all that, okay? All of those things aren't going to change. That's the DNA. Just that is it.

But when you have a sound mixer, you turn the guitar up, you turn the drums down. I don't know, I'm not a sound mixer, I'm just guessing, but you've got all those buttons, and there's knobs and dials, and now you do it on your computer, and it's all very exciting, and there's all kind of whatever you're doing. You can absolutely change the sound of a track. Like, completely alter the sound of a song just by fiddling with some buttons and dials, right? Turning things up, turning things down, that's epigenetics.

That's epigenetics. So there are some things that we do know. Dieting turns up the volume on certain genes. The genes that control your metabolism, the genes that control your hunger hormones, the genes that control your fat storage. So, when you repeatedly diet, not only does it change your metabolism in the short term, but it appears that actually impacts your DNA in the long term. Like, it doesn't change your DNA, nothing changes your DNA. But it changes the sound of the song, the vibe of the song. Right? Changes the volume.

There's some evidence that air pollution and water pollution also impacts your weight and also may impact your genetics. Chemical exposures to certain chemicals, BPA, pesticides, also linked to weight gain, also may impact your genetics. I mean, this is all, as I said, it's mainly theory. But there's emerging evidence, this is like an emerging field, really fascinating stuff. But we do know that it's happening, and here's a really interesting thing. It gets passed on down through the generations, and there's this really fascinating study that was done on the grandchildren of Dutch survivors of the Dutch Famine in World War II.

So, what they did was they got the grandchildren of men, and men is important. Men who, some of whom went through the Dutch famine, experienced famine, and some of who didn't experience famine during World War II. And what they found was that the grandchildren of those who did experience famine were just on average heavier. Heavier than those who didn't.

This idea of survivor genes, you know? If you survive famine, it's like, the DNA doesn't change, but there's, like, a marker, like a post-it note, like a little message in the corner of the book that is the DNA of your life. And it just goes, famine is a bad thing. You can't trust your source of food. Be careful. Conserve energy where possible. Don't let your fat stores be depleted, because this really big thing happened, and so, you know, that gets passed down.

And it doesn't get, it gets passed down even through fathers, even through the male line. And that's relevant, and when I say fathers, I mean, like, biological fathers now, right? You understand what I mean? I'm talking about the people who provided the Y chromosome, and that's relevant because it's got to be DNA. It's got nothing to do with, like, exposure in utero or anything like that. It's got to be DNA. Fascinating. Fascinating stuff.

So it's DNA, it's also epigenetics and epigenetics, all of that, really important. That's just one part of the puzzle. Just one. Alright, so first of all, you are the weight that you are because you inherited your weight. And second of all, the weight that you inherited, the DNA, can be changed by your own personal experiences, by the world around you, your environment, and even by your ancestors. And guess what? Can't really control all of those things. And for those of you who are going, yeah, but maybe I shouldn't have gone on a diet, that's the past, there's nothing you can do about that now, so just stop that train of thought.

There's more there. Your environment, urbanization, has radically transformed human beings, right? Urbanization over the past two centuries has changed our body shape. Modern society, we can all agree, far cry from what our ancestors were used to. And evolution hasn't had a chance to catch up. Evolution takes hundreds of thousands of years. We're talking two decades. It's nothing.

So what's changed? We're living in much more crowded living conditions. There's noise pollution. There's economic pressures, the likes of which are different to what we experienced in the past. There's inescapable chronic stress. Again, that, I'm sure, existed in the past, but it's different now. All of these things are causing us to have sleep deprivation, a lot of us now are not getting enough sleep, we're not getting adequate amounts of sleep. There's a lot more hormonal imbalances. All of these things, they're promoting fat storage.

All of these things. You might think, what is my crowded living condition got to do with my fat storage, like, because I, it's because I live in a small apartment, what's that got to do with anything? It does! And you'll see why in a minute.

This idea that, like, oh, it's a sedentary lifestyle, human beings just don't exercise anymore, they don't move around, like, they just eat all the time and don't move. That's, I mean, to be fair, we are much more sedentary than we used to be. I'm not arguing that, but is that, like, a personal failure, or is that because of urbanization and capitalism, and all of that jazz. Like, society has been restructured to the point of being almost unrecognizable, but you and I didn't choose that. We didn't choose to be sedentary. We didn't choose to work sedentary jobs. That is the only option that we have.

This is happening to us, not because of us. Mechanization replaced labour-intensive work, sure, loads of people were moving about in their jobs once upon a time, and then robots came along and did our jobs for us, and computers and AI now. Of course it was different 200, 300 years ago, it was not my fault, and it's not your fault. Cities expanded, jobs move indoors, and that was the end of that.

And that leads us onto another thing that really impacts your weight, alright? So we've talked about genetics. We've talked about our environment, we've mentioned pollutants, we've mentioned overcrowding, noise pollution, economic pressures, economic stresses, all these things. Stress will keep coming up over and over again because stress has a profound impact on your weight. So does trauma.

Trauma actually alters the anatomy and chemistry of your brain. We have evidence to support that. It plays a very significant role in your physical health and well-being. Trauma also plays a role in your body size, your, you know, ultimately in your body size. There's lots of evidence. Adverse experiences, adverse childhood experiences, increase are associated with higher weights. The more adverse childhood experiences you have, the heavier you're likely to be. This is especially true of childhood sexual trauma. That's really very much been linked to weight gain during adolescence and into adulthood.

So, trauma has an impact on your weight. And so does chronic stress. Why? Because the little hormone called cortisol. It's gonna keep coming up over and over again. You said, what is my living conditions? What does my job insecurity have to do with my weight? It's called cortisol. That's what it has to do with your weight.

Cortisol is a hormone that is released by the adrenal glands that sit above our kidneys, and the purpose of cortisol is to help you to manage stressful situations, and acutely stressful situations. The problem is that for a lot of us now, we are just like, bathing in cortisol. Like, we live in a cortisol soup. It never, it just, you know, the levels are so high, and our body is learning to adapt to that. Remember epigenetics? Remember that. But also, just, you know, how our lives are so different.

Cortisol stimulates our body to store fat. It literally tells the body to store fat over long periods of time. It stimulates our appetites. It increases our blood sugar levels. Cortisol leads to insulin resistance. Cortisol, cortisol causes you to gain weight. And anybody who has taken cortisol in tablet form, corticosteroids, they'd be known as, in tablet form, knows this! But, like, your weight balloons! It's just because of cortisol, that's what cortisol does is the job of cortisol.

So, the problem is that we are just living with such high cortisol levels that it's A causing us to gain weight, it's also B causing, it has a negative impact on our health and wellbeing. General physical and mental health and wellbeing.

What causes stress, folks? Chronic stress. What causes chronic stress? Lots of things, right? But income inequality causes chronic stress. Job insecurity causes chronic stress. Discrimination causes chronic stress. Weight stigma definitely causes chronic stress. Reduced access to education and healthcare, safe housing, all of these things cause chronic stress. Dieting causes chronic stress.

And then you've got to think about it, like, it gets deeper. Limited opportunities, right? Income inequality, job insecurity, et cetera, et cetera, unsafe environments. These are associated with poorer mental health and increases risk of abuse and violence, domestic violence, that kind of thing. So it becomes a cycle. It becomes a cycle. That's how it works.

People in lower socioeconomic groups, people who are marginalized because of their race or their gender identity, or their sexual orientation, or their religion, or whatever, or their disability, they experience more stress on a day-to-day level. They are also more likely to live in crowded living conditions, and they're more likely to live in cities and in urban areas. They are more likely to be exposed to pollutants, they are more likely to have inherited epigenetic mutations from their ancestors. So they already, or I should say they, we, you, are already at a disadvantage.

This leads to weight gain. This means that you will probably, statistically, be a lot heavier. If you're heavier, you are gonna have lower wages, there's a fat, what's that called? That wage gap. It's a fat wage gap, in case you didn't know. So you would likely have lower wages. You don't have access to healthcare. You don't have access to a good quality education, less likely to have safe housing, higher risk of abuse, higher risk of mental health issues.

Cool, because that leads to further weight gain. When you gain weight, and as you gain weight, you're discriminated against. You're discriminated against by healthcare professionals, by police officers, by teachers, by everybody who's in a position of power and authority, by your family members, by everybody, by your colleagues, your co-workers, your boss. You're discriminated against.

Discrimination leads to further stress. Further stress leads to weight gain. Weight gain leads to lower wages, and da-da-da-da. And do you see the cycle? It's a cycle that never ends. And this cycle has existed for as long as we can remember, and the thing that you really, really need to get your head around is the cycle, the cycle started intentionally. This was always a ploy.

Our hatred, society's hatred of fatness, society's hatred of people who are fat. Society's obsession with weight loss. It all started as a means to control bodies, to control the masses, to oppress and marginalized groups of people. Like, it was intentional. Just if you haven't already, and I'm sure you already have, but just read Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings, read Deshaun Harrison's book. Oh, God. I'll remember it in a minute. I should really Google it. That's really embarrassing. What is it called? All of you are shouting at me right now, aren't you? I know it.

Deshaun Harrison's, Belly of the Beast, that's it, I knew it would come to me. Really good books, but when you read these books, you begin to really get your head around the fact that this was always fucking intentional. This cycle of stress, discrimination, marginalization, and weight gain, and further stress and discrimination and marginalization and weight gain was intentional. It is rooted in anti-Black racism, it is rooted in Christian hegemony. It's rooted in capitalism, and in misogyny. And in all sorts of, just, really shitty things, for want of a better word. It's not fair, and it's never been fair.

It has never been fair, and who gets blamed? Who gets blamed? The people who started in the first place, the people who continue to perpetuate it, the doctors who are discriminating against their patients, the judges that are discriminating against people based on their weight, and sticking them in prisons, who gets blamed for this? No, it's not them.

You, you get blamed, the individual gets blamed. Why? Because it is so much easier and so much more effective to blame the individual. It is easier, it is less costly. If we start to shift responsibility away from individuals and towards the governments and public health providers and healthcare professionals that actually should be taking responsibility, people whose literal job it is to improve these conditions, by the way. Actual jobs are to improve these conditions. If we start shifting responsibility away from the individual and towards them, what is actually going to happen to society? You tell me.

That's the real issue here. It's not because you ate too much and didn't exercise enough. That is a simple, biologically implausible explanation. It is basic, it is, there is no sort of basis for it, but that is the explanation they use to discriminate against you, to oppress you, to control you and your body.

They can literally say to you, you can't have healthcare unless you are starving yourself, eaten down through starvation. That is what they can do to you. We can force you to consume 800 calories a day if you want to be able to move your knee in the future. We can actually do that. We have the power to do that. Instead of saying, whoa, fuck, maybe we should, like, look at some of these other systems in place if we really actually cared about your health, maybe we should be working towards, you know, better access to healthcare and better this and better that, and removing stigma and removing, maybe if they actually cared, that's what they'd do, but they don't care.

Don't forget that. It's not your fault, it's THEIR fault. And if it's their fault, it's their responsibility to fucking fix it. Not your responsibility, you didn't break it, you shouldn't have to fix it, they broke it, they should have to fix it.

Next week, I'm going to talk a little bit more about some historical wellness influencers who are very much, most of them are doctors, who are very much impacted the way that you and I are treated by the medical profession today. You don't want to miss it. Some of them you'll have heard of, some of them you might not have heard of, or won't be very familiar to you. And, yeah. I'm gonna take you on a little history lesson. So I look forward to it.

I kind of got very ranty, I hope you're enjoying my rants. I don't know, for those of you who are interested in astrology, you may know that Neptune has recently moved into a new sign, into Aries, and Aries just happens to be my fifth house of creativity and imagination, so I'm very excited about these new things. And also right now, the sun, as I'm recording this, the Sun is in Aquarius, and that happens to be my third house, 3rd house communication. So for those of you who understand what that means, maybe you'll understand why I'm just really just full of energy and passion right now. That's what's occurring.

Please keep in touch. Please keep commenting on my videos, and if you or anyone you know has some advice about self-publishing a book? If you've done it yourself, or you know someone who's done it, I am always, I, you know, I am, I don't claim to know what I'm doing, and I will listen to anyone and everyone's advice. Even if your advice is don't do it. I mean, I'm not gonna follow your advice, but I still will listen to it.

To all the haters on YouTube, I love ya, hope you enjoyed this one, I bet you really got mad. Oh, I'm sorry, give me a thumbs down, give me a thumbs down, I need more of your thumbs down. Love ya, see you next week, take care.

If you're enjoying this season and want an exclusive early look at the book as I write it, I'm reading No Weigh aloud chapter by chapter in my Book Club – exclusive to members of The Weighting Room community.

Here's the thing: most online communities - even fat liberation spaces - are not designed for burned out neurodivergent folks. They rely on social media apps that feel overwhelming and overload the senses. They require you to perform engagement or mask your way through small talk. You find yourself scrolling through hundreds of unread messages wondering if you missed something important and worrying that people are judging you for it. Or your posting into the void and spiralling when nobody responds. And if it’s a paid community, there’s the added pressure of feeling like you need to participate enough to justify the cost. 

I've recently redesigned The Weighting Room specifically for people with brains like mine. Perfect if you’re Fat, traumatized, neurodivergent, and burned out. You get predictable structure that supports executive dysfunction. Immediate dopamine hits from completing tasks alongside others. No FOMO because each session is self-contained. No ongoing risk of rejection and  zero social debt.

So what does that look like? Each week there are four virtual sessions that you can turn up to if and when they suit. There’s two body doubling or coworking sessions that you can use to focus on a project, practice some self-care, tackle a task that you’ve been putting off – whatever you need. I’ll be using it to fold my laundry or working through the emails that I’ve been avoiding. Cameras off. No small talk. No obligations. Just a safe space to feel less alone without any requirements to perform or mask. There’s also a crafting circle, stargazing sessions for spiritual exploration, and, of course, Book Club where you hear each chapter of No Weigh first. Plus a Signal group for peer support but with very clear boundaries. Show up when you can, skip when you can't. No pressure. No judgement. 

It's £15 a month. And honestly? If you've been looking for a way to support the work I’m doing while getting community that actually works for how your brain functions, this is it. You get community that actually works for you, and I get to keep writing, keep fighting weight stigma, and keep showing up without worrying about how I’m going to pay my bills.