Helene York

No matter what popular diet books say, losing weight is about eating fewer calories. New research recently confirmed this simple formula without equivocation. So why do most successful dieters gain weight back? And is this conundrum related to our obesity epidemic? The answer isn’t simple but it’s fascinating, and businesses can play a bigger role than they may think.

If you’re reading this article, chances are your company has already adopted many socially responsible business practices. But has overfeeding your employees gotten any attention? Perhaps it’s time to think about some new patterns in creative ways. We’ve got a lot to gain, and perhaps even more to lose.

As a population, Americans are grossly overweight but attempts to reverse or even reduce obesity have been curiously ineffective. Why? Some argue that junk food or no nutritional labeling on restaurant food is to blame. We’ve gotten fatter as the sales of cheap fast food have increased, but is that McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) fault? Others blame our collective lack of willpower on flawed subsidies that produce empty calories.

Instead of walking to work, we drive, and now we routinely eat as we drive. Our wellness directors believe that persistent lack of exercise is responsible for obesity, but surely that’s not the whole problem. Snacking between meals seems like an easy target too. Harvard economists Cutler and Glaeser report that snacking is responsible for the biggest increase in average calories consumed over the last 30 years (an increase of 100 percent).

Bellevue, Wash.-based The Hartman Group recently reviewed proposed “solutions” to obesity and found that most fall into one of three categories: blame, teach or tinker. Blame consumers for lacking self-control. Teach employees about healthy eating. Label foods. Tinker by banning junk food on school premises and institute taxes on snacks.

But none of these well-intentioned options has been effective. In Hartman’s view, only a cultural shift can reverse obesity. For most of human history, eating is one of the fundamental rituals of social life. Anthropologists have recorded that the physical act of eating together actually serves to regulate food portioning and food consumption, which controls calories. Put simply, when others are around we tend to eat less. When we are eating alone, we tend to eat much more.  The same normative forces that keep people from transgressing moral boundaries (such as committing crimes) also keep us from overeating.