Will determines weight; the rest is simple math

Editor’s note: This letter is in response to Amelia Hoover Green’s column published in last week’s Daily Lobo, which criticized UNM professor Geoffrey Miller’s tweet regarding the willpower of “obese” Ph.D. applicants.

Amelia Hoover Green,

With regard to Miller’s “hateful” tweet, I feel compelled to clarify what I feel are inaccuracies with your rebuttal. While Miller’s analogy may not be entirely logical, there certainly is a lot of underlying #truth, as applied to our society as a whole.

While I will never condone “fat shaming” as you term it, I will also not ignore the fact that it is a choice to have any type of body. Certainly it is easier for some to maintain a “desired,” or healthy, body weight, but the unavoidable fact is that it can simply be broken down to an undisputable mathematical formula.

Taking in more calories than one expends will obviously lead to weight gain, and restricting calories will of course have the opposite effect. I will allow the caveat that some biological conditions will make the process of weight loss slower than expected or desired.

We live in a society that strives at every turn to achieve the ultimate in immediate gratification, be it fast food, fast smartphones or even rapidly acting medications to assist a person to ostensibly lose 20 pounds in a matter of weeks. Perhaps if we as a society had more willpower, we would be willing to wait a few more seconds for our hamburgers or a couple nanoseconds more for our emails. We might even be willing to wait a few moments, take a deep breath, and disagree with each other without resorting to name calling.

Considering that restricting calories by 10 percent can be considered significant, it is likely demoralizing to most to learn that, when the simple math is tabulated, eating 200 fewer calories every single day for one year will result in the loss of “only” 20 pounds.

Do you personally know anyone who has the willpower to carefully restrict their eating in such a way for an entire year? I certainly do not have the willpower, and cannot think of many, if any, people who have the fortitude to complete such a challenge of will.

The point is, willpower eludes nearly all of us in different ways. You have every right to disagree with Miller’s method of delivery, but the message he propagated is, in a unique facet of nearly every person’s life, a #truth. 

Christian Hesch
UNM student