By Mukaila Kareem
Every January, the same story repeats itself. People are advised, or personally resolved, to eat less, move more, and finally “get disciplined.” A few weeks later, hunger intensifies, energy feels lower, and frustration sets in. The usual conclusion is often self or societal blame for lack of self-control or willpower. But this framing misses something fundamental about how the body works. As I wrote last December in an article titled The Dangers of Prolonged Sitting, and I quote: “Exercise is medicine, and this is how it works: eating imports energy, movement exports heat, and health depends on keeping both in motion.” When movement slows but eating continues, energy stalls, and the body responds in predictable ways that have nothing to do with personal weakness.
Most people have noticed a strange paradox in everyday life. On physically busy days, meals are often delayed or forgotten without discomfort, despite long hours of physical exertion. Yet on sedentary days, the same person can feel constant hunger, even with regular eating. This difference has little to do with discipline or having a “slow metabolism.” It has everything to do with movement and flow. When the body is active, energy moves through muscles, heat is released, and hunger stays quiet. When movement disappears, energy stops moving smoothly, and hunger grows louder — not because fuel is missing, but because the system is stuck.
The human body is not a storage container. It is designed to move energy through itself. Food brings energy in, muscles help move it along, and heat and waste carry it out. When daily movement drops, this balance breaks down. Therefore, when daily movement drops, energy stops moving smoothly through the body and begins to pile up instead. In this stalled state, the body does not experience a shortage of fuel. In fact, fuel is often abundant, and what is missing is motion. When the brain senses that things are no longer moving as they should, it triggers hunger signals. This is not because the body needs more calories, but because it is trying to keep energy flowing through the system.
This explains why people can feel hungry even as they gain weight. Biologically, flow must occur, so eating adds more material into a system that is already struggling to move, in order to demand some kind of flow. Invariably, fat storage increases not as a failure, but as a temporary holding pattern for the body to manage excess energy when movement is limited. Over time, this protective response hardens into obesity and related metabolic problems.
In contrast to the physically active patterns that shaped human biology, for most of human history, people walked, worked, and remained in motion for hours without constant eating. Hunger appeared after activity, not before it. Movement created flow, flow released heat, and appetite followed naturally. In those conditions, the body didn’t need to shout with hunger because energy was already moving.
Obesity, then, is not a personal weakness or a failure of willpower. Many weight-loss efforts fail not because people are undisciplined, but because they focus almost entirely on diet while ignoring movement. Restricting food alone often backfires over time, as inactivity stalls energy flow, intensifies hunger, and leads many people to abandon the plan after an initial drop in weight. Restoring flow doesn’t require punishment or extreme measures. It starts with daily physical activity such as walking, standing, and moving often, allowing energy to pass through the body again.
Regular daily movement does not primarily “burn calories,” but exports heat and keeps energy flowing. This helps explain why many traditional farming societies have historically maintained a stable body weight throughout adult life.
Mukaila Kareem, a doctor of physiotherapy and physical therapy advocate, writes from the USA and can be reached via makkareem5@gmail.com
