Food Supply Is Making Weight Loss Seem Impossible

Americans keep gaining weight and blaming themselves. But nutrition scientist Dr. Kevin Hall says it's not about willpower. The food supply is literally designed to make you overeat.

Hall's done something most researchers haven't—he ran actual clinical trials on ultraprocessed foods and obesity. In his first trial at the National Institutes of Health, 20 people ate 500 extra calories a day when given ultraprocessed foods versus whole foods. In his second trial, 36 people ate an extra 1,000 calories a day on the ultraprocessed diet.

Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at NYU, called these "two of the most important experiments ever done in nutrition" because participants were locked in and couldn't lie about what they ate.

Which foods made people eat the most? Ultraprocessed meals that were energy dense—lots of calories per bite—and hyperpalatable. The kind where you can't stop at one serving.

Hall was a senior investigator at the NIH until he retired in April after calling out censorship of his research by the Department of Health and Human Services. Now he's written a book called "Food Intelligence" about all of this.

Your Food Environment Is Rigged

Hall says food intake is biologically controlled. Your brain runs an internal system of hormones and signals that guide what you eat, mixed with environmental cues. You're not aware it's happening.

The problem? Ultraprocessed foods disrupt those signals. Scientists are just starting to understand how nutrients paired with certain additives mess with gut-to-brain communication.

Sure, some people lose weight through lifestyle changes. But when the food environment is stacked against you, making good choices becomes way harder. Hall wants people to know it's not all their fault.

The food environment used to be different. Grandma's apple pie was a rare treat. Now that same indulgence is everywhere, all day, cheap, and heavily marketed to kids.

Some ultraprocessed foods aren't worse than Grandma's pie. They're just so available that they influence way more people than Grandma ever could from her kitchen.

There's science showing some people experience something like addiction with ultraprocessed foods. And solid evidence that diets high in them are harmful. Over 50 percent of an American adult's diet and more than 60 percent of kids' diets are ultraprocessed, according to the CDC.

How Do You Deal With This?

Hall admits it's not easy with current food labels. Calculating energy density and tracking hyperpalatability requires monitoring carbs, sodium, and added sugar to see if certain combinations cross specific thresholds. Too much work for most people.

His advice? Choose ultraprocessed foods with better nutritional profiles—lower salt, sugar, and saturated fat—that make it easier to eat more fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. He does this himself.

Buy ready-to-eat meals with whole grains and veggies but without tons of added sugar or saturated fat. Use jarred marinara sauce that's low in sodium and sugar, and throw it over vegetables and whole grain pasta. Healthy meal without starting from scratch.

Don't obsess over whether something is ultraprocessed. Focus on whether it helps you eat better overall.

What's Overhyped Right Now

Hall's worried about precision nutrition—companies selling gut microbiome tests, continuous glucose monitors, and genetic measurements that promise personalized diet advice.

The problem with this? There aren't strong studies showing those work better than boring standard advice: eat more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes while eating less saturated fat, added sugar, and sodium.

Precision nutrition might help some people in the future. Right now? It’s mostly hype.

The Metabolism Lie

Hall also destroyed the myth about boosting metabolism to lose weight while studying "The Biggest Loser" contestants.

People think a slow metabolism makes weight loss harder. But when Hall measured contestants, the ones whose metabolism slowed the most didn't regain the most weight. So really, there is no connection at all.

Yet people still buy metabolism-boosting supplements. You can even buy dinitrophenol online—one of the first metabolism drugs the FDA banned because it caused deaths and blindness. The supplement industry is barely regulated.

The Reality

Stop blaming yourself. The food supply is engineered to make you overeat. Ultraprocessed foods are designed to be energy dense and hyperpalatable. They mess with your body's signals about when to stop eating.

The solution isn't willpower. It's recognizing the problem and making smarter choices in a rigged system. Pick whole foods when you can and ultraprocessed foods with better nutritional profiles when you need convenience.

And skip the expensive biohacks and metabolism pills. The boring advice still works best: more vegetables, less junk.

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