full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Sandra Aamodt: Why dieting doesn't usually work

Unscramble the Blue Letters

From an evolutionary perspective, your body's resistance to weight loss makes sense. When food was scarce, our ancestors' survival depended on csroivenng energy, and regaining the wehigt when food was available would have protected them against the next saotrhge. Over the course of human history, starvation has been a much bgegir pobrlem than oatvneireg. This may explain a very sad fact: Set points can go up, but they rarely go down. Now, if your mother ever mentioned that life is not fair, this is the kind of thing she was talking about. (Laughter) Successful dieting doesn't lower your set point. Even after you've kept the weight off for as long as seven years, your biran keeps trying to make you gain it back. If that weight loss had been due to a long famine, that would be a sensible response. In our modern world of drive-thru burgers, it's not working out so well for many of us. That difference between our ancestral past and our abundant psnreet is the reason that Dr. Yoni fdorhefef of the University of oattwa would like to take some of his patients back to a time when food was less available, and it's also the reason that cnngaihg the food environment is really going to be the most effective solution to obesity.

Open Cloze

From an evolutionary perspective, your body's resistance to weight loss makes sense. When food was scarce, our ancestors' survival depended on __________ energy, and regaining the ______ when food was available would have protected them against the next ________. Over the course of human history, starvation has been a much ______ _______ than __________. This may explain a very sad fact: Set points can go up, but they rarely go down. Now, if your mother ever mentioned that life is not fair, this is the kind of thing she was talking about. (Laughter) Successful dieting doesn't lower your set point. Even after you've kept the weight off for as long as seven years, your _____ keeps trying to make you gain it back. If that weight loss had been due to a long famine, that would be a sensible response. In our modern world of drive-thru burgers, it's not working out so well for many of us. That difference between our ancestral past and our abundant _______ is the reason that Dr. Yoni _________ of the University of ______ would like to take some of his patients back to a time when food was less available, and it's also the reason that ________ the food environment is really going to be the most effective solution to obesity.

Solution

  1. conserving
  2. shortage
  3. problem
  4. changing
  5. brain
  6. overeating
  7. freedhoff
  8. present
  9. weight
  10. ottawa
  11. bigger

Original Text

From an evolutionary perspective, your body's resistance to weight loss makes sense. When food was scarce, our ancestors' survival depended on conserving energy, and regaining the weight when food was available would have protected them against the next shortage. Over the course of human history, starvation has been a much bigger problem than overeating. This may explain a very sad fact: Set points can go up, but they rarely go down. Now, if your mother ever mentioned that life is not fair, this is the kind of thing she was talking about. (Laughter) Successful dieting doesn't lower your set point. Even after you've kept the weight off for as long as seven years, your brain keeps trying to make you gain it back. If that weight loss had been due to a long famine, that would be a sensible response. In our modern world of drive-thru burgers, it's not working out so well for many of us. That difference between our ancestral past and our abundant present is the reason that Dr. Yoni Freedhoff of the University of Ottawa would like to take some of his patients back to a time when food was less available, and it's also the reason that changing the food environment is really going to be the most effective solution to obesity.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
weight loss 5
weight gain 4
lose weight 3
controlled eaters 3
intuitive eaters 2
healthy habits 2
overweight people 2
obese people 2

Important Words

  1. abundant
  2. ancestral
  3. bigger
  4. brain
  5. burgers
  6. changing
  7. conserving
  8. depended
  9. dieting
  10. difference
  11. dr
  12. due
  13. effective
  14. energy
  15. environment
  16. evolutionary
  17. explain
  18. fair
  19. famine
  20. food
  21. freedhoff
  22. gain
  23. history
  24. human
  25. kind
  26. laughter
  27. life
  28. long
  29. loss
  30. mentioned
  31. modern
  32. mother
  33. obesity
  34. ottawa
  35. overeating
  36. patients
  37. perspective
  38. point
  39. points
  40. present
  41. problem
  42. protected
  43. rarely
  44. reason
  45. regaining
  46. resistance
  47. response
  48. sad
  49. scarce
  50. sense
  51. set
  52. shortage
  53. solution
  54. starvation
  55. successful
  56. survival
  57. talking
  58. time
  59. university
  60. weight
  61. working
  62. world
  63. years
  64. yoni