A couple times recently, I've come across the notion that obesity is a sign of malnutrition. The first time, it was in an interview, and I decided just to edit that out, 'cause I wanted to save the speaker from himself. I mean, that couldn't be right, right?

Then I saw it again here, and while I'm not buying it yet, I understand the reasoning and see how it might be true. For some. Perhaps.

Essentially, the writer's (no name on the site, that I can find) theory is that we keep eating until our bodies get the nutrients they need, and the processing of food has removed or reduced some of those nutrients, so we keep eating in fruitless searching.

On his/her "2 minute summary" page, the writer compares the circumstance to when rice polishing began "and people died of beriberi, a disease caused by nutritional deficiency. In the early 1900s, we didn't prepare corn properly, and people died of pellagra, a disease caused by nutritional deficiency." And now, the writer says, the processing of grain down to white flour not only creates a deficiency, it damages the GI tract, preventing the uptake of nutrients from other things eaten.

I dunno if it's true, but it's plausible. I ingest neither flour nor refined sugar because both create a physical craving in me, akin to how abusers develop a physical craving for cocaine. IMO, the analogy is apt, since cocaine, heroin, flour, and refined sugar result from the same process, essentially: start with a plant, strip out the fiber and other parts, and concentrate what's left.

The context of this site is the paleo way of eating, which I wrote about in October. Though I don't eat that way, we are certainly simpatico.

So what do you think? Can overeating come from under-nutrition?