The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss

In The Obesity Code, Fung argues that a diet low in refined carbohydrates, alongside intermittent fasting, is central to achieving long-term weight loss. As such, Fung is part of a long line of commentators identifying carbohydrates as key contributors to the global obesity epidemic. An early proponent of limiting carbs was the French lawyer and politician Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin who posited a connection between carbohydrates and obesity in his 1825 book The Physiology of Taste. A few decades later, a formerly obese English undertaker named William Banting repeated Brillat-Savarin’s ideas in his best-selling pamphlet, Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public (97). It was not until the middle of the 20th century, however, that medical professionals began linking carbohydrates to obesity. In 1953, for example, Dr. Alfred Pennington published an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine highlighting the role of carbohydrates in weight gain. In 1967, Dr. Irwin Stillman brought the connection between carbohydrates and obesity to popular attention in his book, The Doctor’s Quick Weight Loss Diet, which sold over 2.5 million copies (97). Stillman surmised that a diet high in protein and low in carbohydrates would result in weight loss because dietary protein takes more time and energy to metabolize than carbs.