Dr Alan Desmond

speaker

206 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 5 Jul

Dr Alan Desmond’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.

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Alive and Kicking with Clare McKenna · Alive and Kicking Full Episode 5/7/26 · 5 Jul 2026 podcast

One of the core messages of the book is that rising rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, various cancers, and other diet-related problems and diseases, the fact that these diet-related diseases are shortening the number of years that we get to enjoy a healthy life, our health span, the the

Key message of the book is this isn't your fault, because this is the food environment that we live in.

The food environment we live in is the driver here.

It's not that people choose to eat unhealthy food, it's that the unhealthiest foods are the foods that are often the most affordable, the cheapest, the most heavily marketed foods.

They're presented to us as the most

Convenient options.

You know, obesity and overweight are a big problem in Ireland and across the EU, right?

About two thirds of people are living with obesity or overweight.

So some people might point fingers at people living with those conditions, but people have got to remember, as I go through in the book, every single human to one degree or another is designed.

Designed to absorb and store energy.

Because for most of human history, humans had very uh limited access to food.

And we were usually not able to get our hands on enough food.

So for our ancient ancestors, Claire, if you were the member of the group who was really good at absorbing calories and storing fat, then you were probably the strongest, fittest member of your social group.

Group.

And you know, like Charles Darwin taught us that if you're the strongest and the fittest, you get to pass on your genetics, don't you?

So every human um is built from that ancestry.

We know there's about a hundred genes that influence our ability to gain weight and to gain excess body weight.

Now, in the 1960s, if you were fully loaded genetically for weight gain,

you had about a one in ten chance of living with obesity.

Five decades later, that had increased to a one in three chance of living with obesity.

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