Asymmetric responses to resource overload: a bow-tie perspective on lake eutrophication and human obesity

Biological systems under chronic resource overload often exhibit asymmetric transitions into high-load states that are difficult to reverse. Within a bow-tie (hourglass) framework, such dynamics arise when diverse inputs are funnelled through a constrained regulatory core governing system-level responses. Here, lake eutrophication and human obesity are analysed as structurally distinct yet dynamically analogous manifestations of resource overload. In lakes, external nutrient inputs and internal biogeochemical feedbacks drive shifts from clear-water, macrophyte-dominated regimes to hypertrophic, phytoplankton-dominated states. In humans, sustained caloric surplus interacts with metabolic-hormonal regulation and behavioural-social drivers to promote the development and stabilisation of obesity. In both systems, reinforcing feedbacks organise around a central regulatory core, reducing flexibility, generating hysteresis, and constraining recovery trajectories. Despite these similarities, key asymmetries emerge. In lakes, dynamics under overload are dominated by a limited set of reinforcing feedbacks, whereas in obesity regulation remains distributed across interacting physiological, behavioural, and environmental domains. In both cases, responses involve cascade-like propagation of effects, taking the form of trophic cascades in lakes and cross-domain feedback cascades in humans. These results show that similar system-level dynamics, including alternative stable states, tipping points, and hysteresis with constrained reversibility, can arise from differently structured regulatory architectures. The comparison demonstrates that reversibility is system-specific and shaped by the organisation of the regulatory core and associated feedbacks. Interpreting eutrophication and obesity through a bow-tie framework provides a comparative, architecture-based perspective on resource overload and helps explain why effective interventions require coordinated actions targeting multiple components of the feedback structure.