Travis Saunders points to an interesting paper that provides “an argument for reframing obesity as caloric overconsumption.” From the provisional PDF:
In order to make sense of the obesity policy cacophony, this paper argues that the problem of obesity should be reframed as caloric overconsumption. There are two broad rationales for this reframing. The first rationale deals with the problems accompanying the current frame obesity. In addition to having become politicized, obesity is an outcome and not a cause. As a frame, “obesity” does not identify any specific causes – and obesity certainly is not the cause of itself! Thus the frame obesity remains open to be interpreted and influenced by competing theories about what does cause obesity. This makes it difficult to identify or assess potential policies or interventions. The second rationale stems from the potential benefits of using the proposed frame, caloric overconsumption. The frame caloric overconsumption minimizes some of the framing competition by identifying a specific cause of obesity, energy input. Moreover, the frame caloric overconsumption will permit a more critical analysis of the various policies and interventions that can be used in obesity prevention.
As Travis says, it’s worth checking the paper. As I’ve discussed before, obesity is a wicked problem, and caloric overconsumption is just one factor (as the paper’s authors acknowledge). And also as Travis says, it’s not clear that any resulting policy implications would be any more likely. But I applaud the effort to move the conversation in the direction of actual cause rather than effect.
Weight Maven is written by Beth Mazur. Beth believes that obesity is more symptom than cause and that the real problem is our Western diet -- especially sugar, refined grains, and industrial oils. Beth writes about nutrition, ancestral health & food policy. And cats! 
Caloric overconsumption and only be determined (to my knowledge) in relation to weight increase. Weight increases and hence the calorie consumption is determined to be too high.During the last 3-4 weeks, I increased my fool consumption significantly, some days I ate more than twice as much as usual. I seemed to gain a bit after the first week (new tight jeans became tighter), but by the end of the phase of increased hunger my body seemed to have established equilibrium (and subsequently, hunger diminished and eating diminished.) Now, if I tried to restrict my caloric intake to prevent weight increase, my body would have extra work to contend with….restricting would only have sent out LOUDER signals to EAT MORE. By not worrying about short term gains and increases, and by trusting my body, I find myself right back where I was about a month ago (same clothing size), and I didn’t need to feel worried or afraid about weight gain. I just needed to trust that my body will inform me about my needs, and I can act on those by feeding myself to satiety. Once the body is secure about the ability to drive up hunger-and increase caloric intake, there is no further need for my body to keep signalling more and more hunger. Everything is in great operating order…I listened to my body’s requests for more food, and A LOT more food, then observed as the hunger level diminished again to previous levels (and even dropped lower than usual hunger levels.) Thus after about a month of high caloric intake with no struggle or attempt to restrict or to endure hunger, the signals telling me to eat more simply stopped. Over the next wee, my body signals informed me to eat less (in response to lower hunger) and the net gain/loss of weight is insignificant.
Now, I wonder how much trouble and homeostatic run-arounds would have happened if I had ignored my body’s demands to eat more, and if INSTEAD I had followed what all the dominant (medical, dietetic, etc) discourses say is best to do under those conditions: RESTRICT! RESTRICT!
I’m pretty sure the end result of restriction at that time would have been a hefty increase in weight as a result of the inner needs vs. the external forces of domination attempting to override those needs. Also, I suspect the period of increased hunger would have lasted much longer as long as its signals were being ignored and were being controlled by external forces (such as will power).
Domination over bodily processes appears efficient in the short term, perhaps, but any self-respecting body eventually brings in the big guns (defensive hormones) to squelch the rebellion and leave the body in a state of heightened
alert for the next attempt at taking control by external means.
It takes time to trust-and to learn to read your body’s signals, but there’s not better substitute, no better care provider to show you what your body needs.
All I can say is I heartily agree with hopeful and free. I actually responded twice to the Obesity Panacea article, which I found to be simply “more of the same”, just wrapped up in pretty paper with a “this is neutral, non-judgemental science” bow on top. This is yet more “blame the fatties”. When the mainstream media gets a hold of this, there will be an extra helping of hate on the weight loss menu.