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If she's fat it's because she's eating more than she's burning off. And it's in her power to change that.

Oh, yes, you're right of course. I was just speaking from my own experience. All my life I never carried any excess weight. I ate all the worst stuff, and never gained a pound. I didn't really "excercise" much, other than the usual activity that everbody does every day. But it never seemed to affect me. Then I turned 40. Over the next couple or few years... things started to turn different. Sure, I had some bad habits... but they had cost me nothing up to then... suddenly those habits started making a difference. The worst part was that then getting smart and cutting back on the calories and carbs only slowed the onset of excess weight and didn't cut it back any anymore. Nowadays... I have to stay on a fairly extreme low-carb, low-calorie diet just to keep from gaining any more. Bodies at different ages have very different chemistry. That's just true.

Bodies at different ages have very different chemistry. That's just true.

Well, the chemistry is the same, but energy regulation goes awry for reasons incompletely understood. Younger people, especially guys, will spontaneously gain or lose weight to get back to their normal, pre-experimental weight within a relatively short time if they undergo a prolonged period of overfeeding or deprivation. Older men, especially elderly men, for some reason are not able to do this. Most people who have gained 15 to 30 pounds over their young 30's weight by the time they get to their 40's and 50's have done so by about 100 or so kcal excess daily that is too small for the body to sense and regulate. Though it's more able to do so with an adequate amount of habitual physical activity (and not running mile and miles, just moderate activity at the level of brisk walking for about 20 minutes 3 or 4 times a week). This is said from the perspective of a Ph.D. in Human Nutrition/Nutritional Biology whose first thesis subject was going to be mobilization and replenishment of intramuscular fat in response to exercise though it ended up being in molecular neurobiology.