Episode Details

The Chorus of “Just Eat Less”

Spend a few minutes on social media, and you will hear it. On Bill Maher's podcast the other day, I heard it. Two people who know less about GLP-1 drugs than almost anyone, opining about how GLP-1s are horrific.

Bill Maher says, “Just eat less.”

Jillian Michaels warns that GLP-1 medications are dangerous. Did she even graduate from college?

Meanwhile, a rotating cast of gym bros, coaches, and influencers insists that anyone using these medications is taking the easy way out.

At first glance, these seem like different voices. A comedian, a fitness personality, a group of online trainers.

However, they are all saying the same thing.

If you are overweight, this is your fault.

If you need help, you are weak.

If you use medication, you are cheating.

That message travels well. It is simple. It fits into a tweet. It sounds like common sense. Science shows us that fat shaming doesn't work (reference).

It is also wrong.

Who Is Doing the Shaming—and Why

The fitness industry has something to lose here, and that part is easy to understand. Entire businesses are built on the idea that weight loss is a matter of discipline. Follow the plan, buy the program, track the macros, and success will follow. If it doesn’t, the explanation is built in.

You didn’t try hard enough.

However, the criticism does not stop there.

When someone like Bill Maher reduces obesity to “just eat less,” it is not about selling a diet plan. Instead, it reflects something else entirely. A kind of cultural impatience with complexity. A belief that if a problem can be described simply, it must also be solved simply.

And when that belief meets a condition like obesity, the result is dismissal.

If I don’t struggle with this, then it must not be real.

If you do struggle, then you must be doing something wrong.

That is not analysis.

That is a failure of imagination.

The Problem with Simple Answers

Medicine has a long history of being wrong in simple ways.

We once believed ulcers were caused by stress alone. Then came Helicobacter pylori and antibiotic treatment. We once thought hypertension was simply a matter of salt intake and personality. Then we developed therapies that addressed the underlying physiology.

Obesity has followed a similar path, except we have been slower to let go of the old explanation.

“Eat less, move more” is not incorrect.

It is incomplete.

Because it ignores the system that determines how much you want to eat, how often you think about food, and how your body responds when you try to lose weight.

The Part I Didn’t Admit

For years, I saw the damage this thinking caused.

I ran support groups for patients struggling with weight. I watched them come in carrying not just pounds, but shame. They believed they were weak, that they lacked discipline, that something about them was broken.

We worked to change that.

We talked about biology. About appetite regulation. About how the body defends weight. We tried to replace blame with understanding.

And yet, I quietly held myself to a different standard.

I didn’t blame my patients.

I blamed myself.

The Surgeon Who Thought He Could Outwork Biology

If anyone should be able to power through something, it is a surgeon. That is the job. Endure long hours. Stay focused. Push through fatigue. Delay gratification.

So I assumed I could do the same with weight.

I tried diets. I cleaned things up. I ate vegetables, cut back on certain foods, and experimented with structure.