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The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane
Real Conversations about things that Matter
All things life and health - physical health, nutrition, mindset, mental health, connection plus society and culture with Fiona Kane, experienced and qualified Nutritionist, Holistic Counsellor and Mind Body Eating Coach
Frank discussions about how to achieve physical and mental well being.
I talk about all things wellness including nutrition, exercise, physical and mental health, relationships, connections, grief, success and failure and much more.
Some episodes are my expertise as a nutritionist and holistic counsellor and some are me chatting to other experts or people with interesting health or life stories. My goal is to give you practical and useful info to improve your health and tidbits that you may find inspiring and that may start discussions within your circle of friend/family.
The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane
Oprah’s “Obesity Gene” Comment: Is Weight Gain Genetics or Choice? | Ep. 143
Welcome back to The Wellness Connection. After a much-needed break, Fiona Kane returns with a deep dive into a headline topic everyone’s been talking about: Oprah’s claim about the “obesity gene.”
In this episode, Fiona unpacks the conversation around weight gain, genetics, hormones, personal responsibility, and the cultural shift toward shame-free compassion. She explores what parts of Oprah’s message hold truth, what parts don’t, and why the real answer sits somewhere in the middle.
You’ll learn:
• Whether an “obesity gene” exists
• How genetics and hormones influence weight
• The real role of choice and personal responsibility
• Why some people gain weight more easily than others
• How emotional eating and addictive tendencies play into weight
• How diet culture and shame have shaped how we talk about weight
• Why modern life makes overeating easier than ever
If you’ve ever wondered why weight is such a complicated, emotional, and often misunderstood topic, this episode gives you a grounded and honest perspective.
📌 Subscribe for weekly conversations on health, hormones, culture, and emotional wellbeing.
Outro: Music by Musinova from Pixabay
Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/
Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/
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Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection. I'm your host, Fiona Kane. And yes, I'm back. So after 143, 142 episodes, whatever it was, I needed a break. And uh it was because it was 143 weeks in a row that I released a podcast. So I took a little bit of a break, had to think about things. I got some feedback from from some people as well. Thank you for your feedback. I really appreciate it. And I waited to come back until I felt like I wanted to. I didn't want to force it. I just wanted to want to be here in front of the microphone and share with you. So I'm back. And look, I I think I will just, as you know, I'm interested in different things. I think I'll just present the different things I'm interested in. And um, and you know, it's for you or it's not, or some episodes will be, some won't. That's fine. And you know, maybe some episodes will be me just reviewing some different things that are in the news, uh, health, health and culture and all different things. And it might be little bits of pieces of all of those things, or longer form episodes on different topics, or mixture of both. Anyway, I'm just going to roll with it and see what develops. And uh always happy to get your feedback about what you enjoy and what you don't. But that's um, but yeah, I'm back. So uh so yeah, and happy new year, because uh even though by the time this comes out, it's late January, uh, that's this is my first one of the year, so happy 2026. It's already been an interesting year for me and my family, and some health challenges and things like that, but um, but fingers crossed things are looking better. So uh, so yeah, it's you know, every year has ups and downs in it. I think you know, we we can't just because we say this is a good year, this is a bad year, and sometimes there are very significant events, but every year has good and bad things. So anyway, I'm gonna just launch right into what I'm talking about today. So, what I'm gonna be talking about today is um is if you haven't noticed, Oprah has released a new book. Well, she didn't write it. I think the doctor that she's um traveling around with wrote it and she just wrote the forward. Look, I haven't read the book, I've just seen her talking about it and seeing other people's reactions to it. So I'm just gonna put in my two cents worth based on some statements that she's made, not based on reading the whole book, just a general gist of what she's talking about. Okay, so this is not a book review, it's just a general discussion that's come from what she's said and the cult, like what she said in the media this week and the response to it as well. So a bit of both of those things. So that's what I'm going to be talking about today. Now, Oprah is talking about the obesity gene, and uh, and that's what's caused all of the uh interesting feedback this week because um I will quote to you what Oprah said. She said one particular quote was all these years I thought I was overeating because of me and because of me and my fault. Now I understand that if you carry the obesity gene, that is what makes you overeat. You don't overeat and become obese. Obesity causes you to overeat. And so that's got quite a big response. And um, and look, a lot of people, I um this is one of those topics where I'm a little bit in the middle, but more towards sanity, but a little bit in the middle. So I'll I'll discuss that a little bit and discuss what I mean. Uh, one of the replies to that uh came from um RFKJ, who is the I think it's the health secretary now in the US. And he said, Dear Oprah, yes, you were overeating for years, and it wasn't some mystical obesity gene puppeteering your fork. It was your choices. Stop selling surrender as science. Our kids deserve the truth, and that real change starts with personal accountability, not excuses. Maha. Oh, yeah. So I don't know if it was from RFKJ specifically or Maha, which is the Make America Healthy Again movement, but he's he's part of that. Anyway, he's he's the leader of that. And that's kind of the general, the general gist of her responses were kind of just laughing at Oprah. So I'm gonna discuss some of the things about what she said, some of my opinions about it, and um, some of them will be a bit supportive of her, and many of them will not, but we'll see how we go. Um, because I'm not really supportive of Oprah at all anymore. Um, to be really honest. I used to be a really big fan of her many years ago. I just see her now just over and over again. She's I think that she's as there's no depth with her, and I think she just sprouts all sorts of stuff that isn't true. I've seen it over and over and over again now. So now I'm questioning all the things I believed when I was younger and all the things that she taught me. And I actually think that she was part of the whole movement. So there's a compassion movement that went through the world over the last 20 or 30 years, um, led by women. And I think it had its benefits. So there's obviously great things about compassion and certainly softening things and not um not shaming people for every single thing and not being really judgmental. And there's a lot of kind of good things that were part of that movement, but it what it's turned into is a completely no one's responsible for themselves, everyone's a victim, and uh, you're a victim of the world, you're a victim of your life, your situation, whatever excuse kind of culture. So I don't I don't like that part of it, and then that's what it's turned into. So it's I left a bad taste in my mouth and really questioning everything I've been taught over the last 30 years in regards to that stuff, and um and yeah, so I'm not a fan of Oprah's by any means. Once upon a time, I would have said I was, but absolutely not now. So I will tell you the things I think that are in support of her and the things that I disagree with. So is there an obesity gene? I don't know about that. Are there genes, uh, do we have genetics that will lead us more in that direction? Well, absolutely. You can even just see the shapes of different families and things where uh where one person will can overeat whatever, and that that's never going to affect them. They're always gonna be tall and skinny or whatever the shape they are. Uh, someone else, you know, can only maintain their weight if they're absolutely very, very careful with what they eat. As soon as they eat too many carbs or too much whatever, they definitely gain weight. So there's definitely a genetic d predisposition to gaining weight that some people not say, look, of course, you know, I think I heard uh Matt Walsh say this, you know, if you put a whole bunch of you know regular size people into an experiment and you just gave them all, I can't remember the examples, but it was like, I don't know, donuts and soft drink every day that put on weight. Look, you're probably right. Uh so I'm not disagreeing with that, uh, that uh there's a reality in a science, and if you eat too much, you gain weight. I get that. Uh, if you sort of did an experiment where you just gave people junk and that's all they did. In saying that though, there are people who are a lot more resistant to that. And people who in their life can have, like if they did it every day all the time, yes, they'd put on weight. But people who just can, I suppose, indulge more in those kinds of things and get away with it. So there's people who, if they do one thing a week that's, you know, too many calories or too many carbs, that's it. They it totally messes their ability to manage their weight. And there's other people that can indulge many times a week in soft drinks and cakes and all sorts of things, and they maintain their weight very, very easily. So there is a reality that we are different and that some of us are more in more prone to weight gain. So it's still about also what you choose to do, but some people can, for want of a better word, get away with. And when I say get away with, I'm just talking about weight and not talking about health. That's a whole other, that's a whole other discussion, right? So some people certainly get away with eating more rubbish and more junk, more sugary things, whatever, and they don't gain weight. Um, and they say absolutely it's all they did, probably they ultimately would, but even then, some people don't, they just really don't. Some people just don't, right? Um, and other people they just don't get away with anything at all, and there's all different people in between. So, yeah, there certainly is genetics in that way. And it certainly would seem also in my experience, seeing that these very, very young, you know, almost babies who are born that, you know, um Dr. Robert Lustig talks about babies who are born obese. I think there's uh there's some issues where there are genetic changes happening. So I'm not completely disregarding the idea of genetics in this. I think there's a component of genetics in this, uh, it's still about choice and still about responsibility as well. But there is, uh I'm not saying it's not a thing at all. Uh so you know, I'll, you know, fair, I think there's something to be discussed around that and more to be looked at around that. I also think that uh our hormones do play a really, really big role in this, and I see this a lot. And you know, as someone who myself, I'm I am and have struggled with weight issues my whole life, up and down. So I look, I I would love to be able to say there's an obesity gene and it's nothing to do with me and it's not my fault, and blah, blah, blah. And it's one of those things that I see it as a mixture. I see it's partly my fault because of some choices I make around what I eat, etc. Um, I also see it as um hormonal changes absolutely do affect you, and I've got Hashimoto's disease, which is thyroid disease, and I've got uh and I'm um sorry, I'm just car backfiring or something in the background.
Speaker:Hopefully this is the sound is and I have got just a moment, just a moment, sorry. Sorry about that.
Fiona Kane:Uh I'm on a main road and near a service station, so we get all sorts of noise here. So I think it's just car noises in the background. All right, get back to what I was talking about. Um, so yeah, I've I've gone through menopause and have thyroid disease, and I know that and I see this with a lot of other women, and I think that hormones absolutely do affect our ability to manage our weight. I'm not saying it's the whole story, I'm not saying it doesn't give you responsibility at all, but I think hormones absolutely do affect things and seem to make it a whole lot harder for some people. Uh, it's just a thing that makes it a whole lot easier for other people as well. So hormones do affect us. Uh, what we eat affects our hormones as well, but um we do have different just different hormonal profiles at different times in our life that absolutely do affect us. And um and so I I I think there's because some people get really angry at anyone who mentions hormones. Hormones are part of that, hormones are part of the whole science of eating and weight loss and everything, so they're part of it. What I'm saying is a contributing factor, not the whole story, but hormones are also part of things. And yes, I would like to say the answer is it's just about hormones, it's got nothing to do with me. That's not true, uh, but it would be convenient to be able to say that. Uh, so what we also know is that some people have more kind of addictive type personalities, so there are people who are more likely to become, you know, addicted to uh poker machines or going gambling, going to the casino or gambling horse racing or whatever, or addicted to drugs, alcohol, or habituated to food. Uh, so there certainly are people who have more of a propensity for that, and I think that part of that can maybe just be genetic, but part of it also might be kind of what you've gone through in your life, right? So obviously people are more at risk sometimes of those sorts of behaviours if they've had uh issues in their childhood, uh, if they've had some sort of brain something happened to their brain when they were younger, if they've had abuse, those sorts of things. So there's lots of reasons why people might be more inclined to uh overeat. Um, there's also the issue of, you know, it's a whole other, and I've talked about this on other um episodes, and I can talk about it more in the future, etc. But that there's obviously there's a big component of emotional eating for people, and there's a lot of people who are managing their mental health in all sorts of ways, and addictions is one of those ways, or food habituation out there, one of the ways that people do and manage their manage their emotions, so that is part of it as well. And I think for the people who just say it's just about calories in, calories out, and they eat too much. Well, yes, for for the most part, there's there's truth in that. I'm not arguing that it is, but it's it's kind of one of those things that's like when you say to people, don't eat too much, it's kind of like saying to an alcoholic, don't drink too much. Uh, it's not saying that they're not responsible, not saying that they shouldn't do the thing, but at the same time, it's not as easy as that. If it was as easy as that, those people wouldn't be doing it. So I I do I do get the challenge in if you are managing mental health issues or managing stress or anxiety with food, it's not as simple as just don't. Uh, so some people need a lot more support, they need therapy or whatever they need to kind of get themselves to a place where they're able to kind of just don't. It's not as simple as just don't. Okay, so there is that kind of thing as well. Many of us, you know, well, any woman and man really now as well, uh, we've all been brought up in diet culture and we've all been brought up to feel shame about what we eat and what we don't eat. And if we eat, if we're if we're overweight, it's must be because you know, the whole glutton sloth theory, which is we overeat and we're lazy, that kind of thing. And so there's a shame thing around this as well, where I think if you feel really ashamed about this stuff, it makes it worse. And it's one of those things, again, with the whole like compassion culture that I talked about, that we've gone so far that now we have no shame. That's not good either. But having but being sort of like fully in shame about your body and your choices of what you eat generally will tend to towards you just more of the same behavior. It's it's not a helpful emotion in that way. Little bit, yes, a lot, no. Um, so there's so I get that that's sort of a bit more of nuanced, and it doesn't mean the science or the the numbers are wrong, it just means that we're human beings living a human experience and we're more complicated than numbers, and you can sort of say you should do this, and this is healthy, and this is a way of doing things, but we see how humans are. It's not as simple as that with human beings, especially in our modern world. Um that's the other thing, too. It's like it's availability and it's our modern world and it's what it looks like because you know, once upon a time there just wasn't that much food available. You couldn't overeat because people, most people were poor. There wasn't that much food. You know, when you look at I've talked about it a million times when you look at the the blue zones and the people who lived long time and all that sort of stuff, or the people that were involved in Mediterranean study, most of them had two meals a day. They were relatively poor, they were farmers or they lived a village kind of a life, they were very active. And um, and overeating just wasn't an option because everything you ate was grown or made or that kind of thing. It's not as simple as buying it from the supermarket or getting Uber Eats or takeaway drive-thru or any of that. None of that was possible. So it kind of wasn't possible to overdo it, you know. Maybe if you were like royalty back in the, you know, back in the day or whatever. But for the average individual, there just wasn't that much food available. The only food that was available is what you what you grew or what you made, and it was slow going and hard to make all of those things and to grow all of those things, and and and so it wasn't as simple as drive-throughs and stuff. So there wasn't the ability to overeat or overdo it. There also wasn't the ability to be in any way sedentary because we had to move our bodies. We had to move our bodies. We had to do, you know, doing the washing was a huge workout, you know, uh, and cooking and mortar and pestle and and growing veggies and gardening and all those things. They all required energy and a lot of physical work. So life itself was physically hard and we physically used our bodies a lot. Whereas now we've we can touch a button for just about everything. So we can be sedentary now, whereas it just was not possible to be sedentary or to overeat, really, um, or barely possible. You know, it was a rare thing. So things were different then as well. And obviously, it's also the food system, the things that are in the food, uh, you know, and that's um interestingly enough, we've seen that with Maha Make America Healthy again. RFKJ is uh they're looking at that as well because I know certainly in the US, just things like there were ingredients and colours and things in foods in the US, but um, and like things like I don't know, fruit loops and stuff like that, which is just sugar anyway. But there were just extra things in there, extra uh extra chemicals in there that were not in the ones that they sell in Canada or that they sell in Australia or other countries, because um, you know, they think Americans need it to be bright coloured and and flural and this and that and whatever. So uh it's interesting um seeing what Maha are doing and how they're changing the way we look at the food system because there are a lot of there's a lot of stuff in the food system that doesn't need to be there, a lot of extra chemicals and things, you know, even just like in the US, I I think um one of my friends went to it was like Disneyland or somewhere like that, and she got some chicken dish and she was quite reactive to fructose, but she thought, which is like fruit sugar, but she thought she'd be safe because she was eating it was chicken or fish or something like that, just protein. And she had a reaction to it, and then she invent she investigated a bit more what was in it, and they actually marinated it in like a fructose syrup, so they marinate it in sugar. Uh that's just who does that, right? So there's just they've done some really weird things with their with their food system when they've added chemicals and sugar and additives and colours and all sorts of stuff, beyond the fact that it's ultra-processed food anyway, and um, and food that doesn't require any, you don't have to make it or prepare it or do anything. We've added a whole bunch of extra things to it that just are not required at all, just and just to make it convenient or to make it uh, you know, a fun colour or whatever it is. Uh so we've messed up the food system, and it's interesting seeing now in the US, uh probably do another episode where I talk about this. Is um they've turned the food pyramid upside down, which is it was predicted in a South Park episode that I really loved at the time. I think it was about 10 or 11 years ago, where they had to turn the food pyramid upside down to save America. And um, and I actually think it is really going to help because I think we needed to do that, so I'll probably do an episode where I just talk about that. But anyway, uh, so it's interesting that that's happened uh in the last few weeks as well. Uh, so yeah, we do have a broken food system, and I think that we have availability of stuff we never had before. We have mental health issues that we never had before, modern world, all sorts of stuff going on. I've talked about I talk about mental health a lot in different episodes, so I won't go over that in detail today. Uh, so there's lots of things, and and I I do think that our hormones do become broken, and I think that when we diet, a lot. When we spend a whole lifetime dieting, which is certainly what Oprah has done and many of us have done, I think it does mess up your system. And what happened starts to happen is, you know, someone who, you know, they might be what would be considered to be morbidly obese, and they can eat seven or eight hundred calories a day, which is very low, and still can't lose weight. Um, or they go low carb or do keto or whatever, and in some cases for them, some of those people it doesn't work because of their uh hormone levels and their insulin levels and all sorts of things. So uh I think we do our system does get broken from dieting over time, and it makes it much, much more challenging to reset things and to make things work. So I don't think weight loss is completely simple and completely calories in, calories out. And there you go, it's simple. What's your problem? I also don't think that that's irrelevant. I think that there's all of these things combined together in regards to weight loss. So I don't think it's it's it's as simple. It's not simple because we're human and it's not simple because our hormones do get messed up, it's not simple because of our food system and what's available to us, it's not system because of all the narratives we've got in our head around food and our bodies and eating and everything. So all of that contributes. However, just saying that I've got the obesity gene. Oh, all right, therefore, nothing I can do about it. The only thing I can do is take GLP1s, which I've done two episodes talking about them. I'm talking about things like Ozempic and uh Manjaro and those sorts of things, weight loss medications. Don't think that's a good idea either, just saying that that's our only option. Uh, I I would also question with Oprah, I'd question a couple of things because she was a big shareholder in Weight Watchers for a lot of years, and I know that for a fact. If does she have any financial interests in GLP1 companies? I don't know that she does. I absolutely don't know that she does. I also don't know that she doesn't, but I'd be questioning that. Why has she become such a big cheerleader for this? Is it simply because she did it and it's worked for her, or is there more to it? I don't know. But anyway, um, I would question that. Because it's always just worth questioning why someone's cheerleading something. Is it if there's a financial gain? Um, there will certainly be a financial gain from selling the book, not that she needs the money, but anyway, I don't know. Uh, but what my probably my biggest concern out of all of this, like while I acknowledge all of the things I've already discussed about how complicated, how uncomplicated, and then also how complicated weight loss can be, and and um, and managing your healthy weight, all of that can be, and how it's a bit of a minefield in this world. I also am concerned that it's kind of part of the whole one. It's one thing I'm always concerned when we're saying you've just got some gene, you can't do anything about it, you're a victim. But pharmaceutical companies can come to your rescue. You just take the drug, great, you know, cured, no issue, right? So any story that cut goes along those words, but I'm always suspicious and very wary of any story that looks like that. Okay, you know, you've got the thing, you're a victim, here's the drug, that's a cure, whatever the topic is. I'm always a bit suspicious of that. Doesn't mean it can't, there can't be truth around it, but I'll always be a bit kind of tentative about it and go, hmm, okay. So I'm a victim of something and I just need the the drug companies to save me. Like, you know, if they were curing cancer or something, yeah, great. But yeah, anyway, so I always concerned about this sort of thing. Um, I'm also concerned that again, like I as I just said, if you just put someone in a place of being a victim, you take away their agency, you take away their hope and sort of say that, you know, well, you've got no hope unless you take the GLP ones. Well, how does that work out for people who either can't access them, can't afford them, or the their symptoms are, you know, they just don't tolerate them. The symptoms are so great, or they've got other health issues, whatever, that means they can't tolerate or can't take those. So you've taken away their agency, you say they need the drug, and then they those people just can't use the drug. Uh, so what are you saying to those people? What are you saying to the people that do use the drug? You say what you're saying is you need you need to be on forever. That's very convenient financially for the drug companies that people will need to take them forever. And in the US, they are talking about apparently they're talking about putting five-year-old, five-year-olds on them. So there's a great deal if you can get it. Get a child on a medication for their whole life. Yes, not the first time we've seen that. Uh, so anything, any any place where we talk about anything to do with diet and lifestyle and health, and we make everything about being a victim completely take away your responsibility for yourself, your um your agency, your hope, and then say there's nothing you can do. You just need to uh take this medication and that will solve everything. Puts you in that passive kind of victim mentality. I don't like that, and I don't think that is helpful either. So I think that um I think that overall I don't like this message. I'm not completely ignorant of the fact that hormones are related to some of these issues, and that weight loss and weight issues and weight gain, obesity, and all of those things can be complicated, in some ways, simple and some ways very complicated topic. I think though taking away every people's agency, making them victims, and and here's the drug company to the rescue always makes me very suspicious, and I don't think that's helpful either. I've talked about it in previous episodes, like I said, GLP ones, can they be a useful thing for some people in their health and in their weight loss journey? Yes, there's still a lot of data, a lot of issues, and and more data needs to come out, and we need to see long term what this looks like. You know, is it something that is it a good idea to take these medications long term? So I'm tentatively saying yes, there is some potential good with these medications. There is also a lot of issues and a lot of bad, and I don't know if the potential bad is going to ultimately outweigh the good. I don't know, we will see, but um, but yeah, anyway, I I just I don't like Oprah's message, it's too simplified, and I think that um you know it comes across to me as um as yeah, I don't know.
Speaker:I don't like it, I'm uncomfortable with it.
Fiona Kane:I don't know that um she's always the best person to follow. She's done every diet fad and everything along the way. So um she's I wouldn't be following Oprah, particularly for my health advice. And yeah, I think making people perpetual victims who are not responsible is not helpful to their health. I think like all these things, there's a balance, and sometimes there's a bit of truth. Sometimes there's a bit of truth in lots of different places. There's not necessarily one right or wrong answer. There's a place that sits somewhere in the middle, and it's different for different people. But yeah, anyway, that's my thoughts on this. I don't follow Oprah. Uh I don't think she's a good person's go-to for advice. And um, and yeah, it's a complicated topic. I don't like her framing of it. I think her framing of it is really, really unhelpful and not going to help people with their health. Anyway, that's my two cents worth. Love to hear your thoughts about it. Love to hear what you think about what Oprah has said or what I have said, what you agree with, what you don't. Please like, subscribe, share, all of that kind of stuff. And um, and I will um I will see you all again next week. Okay. Thank you. Talk to you later. And uh, this is a podcast where we like to have real conversations about things that matter. Bye.
