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Saint Street Revolution
21st August 2007, 02:02
Is it possible to be born with a tendency to be overweight, as an inherited trait? Most people that I have heard of become overweight or obese because they have slow metabolism. Can you choose this? Is there a way to speed your metabolism? Or do some people have fast metabolisms and some don't?

As well as inheritance of slow metabolism, do you inherit a large appetite?

Cheers,

Rhino Thunder Pants
21st August 2007, 02:32
People are often born with a tendancy to be overweight it was on the news not so long ago people are often born with two fat genes making the metabolic rate slower causing them to feel hungier exercise obviuosly speeds your metabloism and some foods also.

so to answer ur questions

1) You can inherit a tendancy to be overweight.
2) You can't chose the speed of your metabolism but u can change it with regular exercise an a healthy diet.
3) You can't inherit a large appetite. A large apetite is down to how slow or fast ur metabolism is which is down to how much exercise and what u eat.

Huelguista
21st August 2007, 02:36
Well we know that some teas can help "boost" your metabolism, but it doesn't change it forever. Personally, I think it's kind of a gray topic...we know that babies can very from weight reguardless of the parents. But who knows...maybe it has to do with what the mother eats when the child is still in the womb.

I'll get back to you.

which doctor
21st August 2007, 02:36
Yes, of course.

Have you ever heard of a thyroid disorder?

Saint Street Revolution
21st August 2007, 02:46
Thanks for the info.

Eleftherios
25th August 2007, 01:02
Is being overweight inherited?

Of course not. I think the idea is just spread around in order to make fat people feel better about themselves. The causes of being overweight are overeating, eating bad food, and leading a sedentary lifestyle.

RedStaredRevolution
25th August 2007, 04:14
Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 08:02 pm
Is being overweight inherited?

Of course not. I think the idea is just spread around in order to make fat people feel better about themselves. The causes of being overweight are overeating, eating bad food, and leading a sedentary lifestyle.
i wouldent jump to conclusions so fast, a know several people who work out like crazy, eat good food, and take generally good care of themselves and still are a little chubby. no matter what they do they cant lose the extra body fat. so i would say that yes it can be inherited

Asstrumpet
25th August 2007, 04:45
Originally posted by RedStaredRevolution+August 25, 2007 03:14 am--> (RedStaredRevolution @ August 25, 2007 03:14 am)
[email protected] 24, 2007 08:02 pm
Is being overweight inherited?

Of course not. I think the idea is just spread around in order to make fat people feel better about themselves. The causes of being overweight are overeating, eating bad food, and leading a sedentary lifestyle.
i wouldent jump to conclusions so fast, a know several people who work out like crazy, eat good food, and take generally good care of themselves and still are a little chubby. no matter what they do they cant lose the extra body fat. so i would say that yes it can be inherited [/b]
They must not be doing the right methods to speed a metabolism. They vary. I personally, do not believe you can inherit a tendency to become overweight. Most children that are overweight along with their parents are just victims of their parents feeding them too much.

Eleftherios
25th August 2007, 11:54
Originally posted by RedStaredRevolution+August 25, 2007 03:14 am--> (RedStaredRevolution @ August 25, 2007 03:14 am)
[email protected] 24, 2007 08:02 pm
Is being overweight inherited?

Of course not. I think the idea is just spread around in order to make fat people feel better about themselves. The causes of being overweight are overeating, eating bad food, and leading a sedentary lifestyle.
i wouldent jump to conclusions so fast, a know several people who work out like crazy, eat good food, and take generally good care of themselves and still are a little chubby. no matter what they do they cant lose the extra body fat. so i would say that yes it can be inherited [/b]
I don't know, I'm not an expert on this topic. Some people just might be born with a tendancy to lose body fat a little harder than others. However, it would still be a mistake to assume that certain kids will grow up to be fat no matter what.

Le Libérer
25th August 2007, 16:49
I do know that body types are inherited. My great grandmother was shapped somewhat round on skinny little legs. I only knew her in her old age and in her youthful pics her shape was thin but still shaped the same. My grandmother and now my mother have grown into that shape as well. My mom had lyposuctiom to remove her belly fat and 10 years later she is shape the same as before the surgery.

I have a feeling if body shape is genetic, such as tall or short, then where you store fat cell is inherited as well.

Both my great grandmother and grandmother died of alshiemers disease as well, so you can just imagine how much I'm looking forward to getting old.

Sentinel
25th August 2007, 17:10
You certainly do inherit a specific type of metabolism from your parents. Sheldon's Somatotype theory has categorised metabolism types in an interesting fashion. I do agree with the wikipedia author that asserting certain psychological charactaristics to metabolism types sounds like patent bullshit, but that Sheldon's indications about there being three main metabolism -- and body -- types may still be quite close to correct.


Somatotype theory

Using anthropometric methods Sheldon studied the photographed bodies of some 4,000 men from front view, side view, and back view. He concluded that the physique of men can be divided into the contribution of three fundamental elements: the somatotypes. He named his somatotypes after the three germ layers of embryonic development: the endoderm, that develops into the digestive tract, the mesoderm, that is to become muscle, heart and blood vessels, and the ectoderm that is to form the nervous system. Sheldon’s “somatotypes” and their (presumed and supposed) associated psychological traits can be summarised as follows:

* Ectomorphic body type is characterized by long arms and legs and a short upper body and narrow shoulders, and supposedly have a higher proportion of nervous tissue. They also have long and thin muscles. Ectomorphs usually have a very low fat storage; therefore they are usually referred to as slim.

* Mesomorphic body type is characterized by a high rate of muscle growth and a higher proportion of muscular tissue. They have large bones, solid torso combined with low fat levels. It is also noted that they have wide shoulders with a narrow waist.
* Endomorphic body type is characterized by an increased amount of fat storage, due to having a larger number of fat cells than the average person, as well as higher proportion of digestive tissue. They have a wide waist and a large bone structure.

In his book, Atlas of Men, Sheldon categorised all possible body types according to a scale ranging from 1 to 7 for each of the somatotypes, where the pure endomorph is 7–1–1, the pure mesomorph 1–7–1 and the pure ectomorph scores 1–1–7. From type number, an individual’s mental characteristics could supposedly be predicted. Sheldon's research showed that a predisposition towards criminality might be influenced by a somatotype high in endomorphy and intermediate in mesomorphy, and in contrast, a predisposition towards suicidality might be influenced by a somatotype high in ectomorphy; on the other hand, ectomorphs were found to be more common in mental institutions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatotype

Asstrumpet
25th August 2007, 21:29
Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 03:45 pm
A few helpful tips for speeding up metabolism is:

* Eat green vegetables, chili and other vegetables
* Eat regularily, preferably every third hour
* Consume omega-3 fatty acids* Consume more protein* Consume less simple carbohyderates and more complex carbohyderates
* Exercise; Preferably something that will generate more muscle mass, as this will increase your body's calorie consumption, along with some simple cardio activity, whatever you like really; volleyball, swimming, running, walking. You just have to increase the rate at which your heart pumps.
If you want it hardcore, do what bodybuilders do when they prepare for a contest; Wake up and walk out of the house on an empty stomach and start walking, fast. That will shed fat from your body, fast.
Yeah, as I said, my theory on this subject is that you may inherit a slow metabolism, but it is possible to alter this and live a healthy lifestyle.

LSD
26th August 2007, 00:02
Is it possible to be born with a tendency to be overweight, as an inherited trait?

Yes.


Is being overweight inherited?

Of course not. I think the idea is just spread around in order to make fat people feel better about themselves.

Right... 'cause the "overweight cabal" secretly controls medical research and has forced doctor after doctor after doctor to consistantly report that genetics play a significant role in determing body type. :rolleyes:

If anything, there's social pressure in the opposite direction. There's a great deal of money to be made in selling diet products and exersize equipment and all other manner of "weight loss" product.

In order to sell all the crap you've got to first convince people that they can actually accomplish something, which means first deluding them into believing that they can look like the models on the box.

The reality, however, is that most people will not and can not get that in shape or that good looking.

The human body just isn't that maleable.


I personally, do not believe you can inherit a tendency to become overweight.

And this "personal belief" is based on what? Divine revelation?

You might want to try doing some research before you start spouting off "beliefs" on things that you know absolutely nothing about.


[Yeah, as I said, my theory on this subject is that you may inherit a slow metabolism, but it is possible to alter this and live a healthy lifestyle.

That's it exactly. No matter your genetics, everyone is still capable of being healthy, it's just that it might be harder for some people than for others. And, of course, no matter how hard you work, some people will always be "chubby" as that term is socially defined.

Body types ultimately have more to do with genetics and physiology than they do with nutritional intake.

***

NWOG, if you're wondering what happened to your "contribution" to this thread, I split it to the Trash (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=70210).

Asstrumpet
26th August 2007, 00:18
I think it may be a combination of both effects.

This link (http://www.ayurhelp.com/articles/Can_Being_Overweight_Be_Inherited.htm) says you inherit the bad habits that cause you to be overweight from your parents, on the contrary to inheriting a slow metabolism.

Thoughts?

LSD
26th August 2007, 00:29
That article is hosted on an ayurvedic website. "Ayurveda" being a religious doctrine which teaches that all medical problems stem from diet. The article itself was written by a fellow who calls himself "Mr. Gym" who promises that he can "exercise" anyone into perfect shape -- so long as they pay him 97$ before hand.

Hardly what I'd call unbiased sources!

So how about instead we look at a slightly more reputable site, like say that of the Centers for Disease Control (http://www.cdc.gov/genomics/training/perspectives/files/obesknow.htm).

Again, genetics don't determine everything, but that they play a significant role is undeniably medical fact.

Asstrumpet
26th August 2007, 00:37
Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 11:29 pm
That article is hosted on an ayurvedic website. "Ayurveda" being a religious doctrine which teaches that all medical problems stem from diet. The article itself was written by a fellow who calls himself "Mr. Gym" who promises that he can "exercise" anyone into perfect shape -- so long as they pay him 97$ before hand.

Hardly what I'd call unbiased sources!

So how about instead we look at a slightly more reputable site, like say that of the Centers for Disease Control (http://www.cdc.gov/genomics/training/perspectives/files/obesknow.htm).

Again, genetics don't determine everything, but that they play a significant role is undeniably medical fact.
Yes, I definitley find your source to be much more informative and trustworthy. Though the overall point of the article, to me, is the statement that children inherit the habits, not the genetics.

Thanks for merging the post by the way, either LSD or Janus?

Janus
26th August 2007, 00:40
Studies have shown that obesity is one of the most heritable characteristics within humans. One of the key hormones that has so far been identified as responsible for weight loss/gain is leptin which helps to regulate one's diet and appetite. Thus, many people are predetermined to remain within a weight range and any deviation from said range is quite difficult in the long run.

Le Libérer
26th August 2007, 02:15
Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 06:18 pm
I think it may be a combination of both effects.

This link (http://www.ayurhelp.com/articles/Can_Being_Overweight_Be_Inherited.htm) says you inherit the bad habits that cause you to be overweight from your parents, on the contrary to inheriting a slow metabolism.

Thoughts?
I would be in agreement with you. I know when I have dieted and lost below my usual weight, I've been sickly. so much so that it wasnt worth the weight loss. I'm speaking of 20 lbs lower than my usual weight.

Another factor besides bad eating habits learned from parents, and espeically in the U$, is the additives in food. Most diet foods actually have an additive that makes you hungry. We are consuming untested preservatives, steriods, and other crap.

You rarely saw obsesity in past centuries, they were too busy busting their asses to survive to lay around and get fat. I dont feel sorry for morbidly obsese people, from the people I know who allowed themselves to get that way, they were all spoiled lazy children. Granted there may be some people who have medical issues that cause them to be that way, I know I gained 50 lbs when I was sick, (was prescribe predicone) when I stopped taking the drug, I worked to get it off, and it came off quite easily, within a year.

I have a voluptous build compared to most of my friends, I'm also somewhat tall 5'9, but I eat healtheir than they do. (No processed food, low sugar, meat and veggies) I average less than 2000 calories a day, and I dont deviate. I rarely eat out in restuarants, mainly because I'm an excellent cook, and I control what goes in my mouth. My activity has been limited recently and all I can do is walk 30 minutes a day and tho I havent gained any weight, I havent lost any either. Blah.

So yeah, I agree with having bad eating habits can be a factor to being overweight, but I also know if you change just that, it wont make much of a difference. The older I've gotten, the slower my metabolism and its hard not gaining weight. Its a struggle, actually. One I'm not willing to give up on.

TC
26th August 2007, 19:38
I’m sorry, but all of these attempts to explain fatness in terms of inheritance*1 or social class (in the west) or other factors outside of an individuals control are just self-deceptive flights from personal responsibility. Many fat people don’t want to acknowledge that they’re fat by their own doing, because they overeat, but this is the reality.

The simple fact of physics is that if you consume more calories than your body needs to sustain itself, you gain weight, if you consume fewer, you lose weight, and if you consume the right amount, you maintain a constant weight. This is true no matter what your genes or socioeconomic or cultural situation is, what magazine covers you saw, what your mom eat in front of you as a child, etc.


I don’t think its overly reductionistic to say that ultimately, whether you’re thin or fat or somewhere in between comes down to your personal preferences: what do you prefer more, good food or good sex.

Fat people effectively choose to be fat, when they overeat, they’re choosing food-for-taste (not sustenance) over sex appeal. But, it would be difficult to admit this personal responsibility because psychologically speaking, were one aware of the choice as such, it would feel like the wrong choice because while food might be enjoyable, sex appeal is status enhancing on a social level and its common to subconsciously equate status with moral good and social pleasure as morally superior to private pleasure.

There is a still present paternalistic ideology that preaches delayed pleasure as a virtue and instant gratification as a vice, and stuffing your mouth with food while knowing that it will make you less attractive later is an example of preferring instant gratification over delayed satisfaction; resisting the urge to eat more (or, if already fat, less) than you need so that you’ll be more attractive later is an example of preferring larger but future gains above smaller immediate ones. All of our lives we’re taught by parental, establishment figures that its better to work for more satisfying results later than to sacrifice them for immediate pleasure, this is how people get through school and college; there is no good reason why this ideological view would be right, but because it feels right, when people deviate from it they feel ashamed, irresponsible, like they’re failing to live up to what they ought to...

So they make excuses to absolve themselves of personal responsibility for their actions and instead blame external causes. They like to think that some thin people can eat whatever they want and not get fat, whereas when they do it, they get fat. This is of course untrue, thin people are thin precisely because they don’t eat whatever they want*2, were a thin person to eat what a fat person eats in a sustained way they would gradually put on weight to match the fat person’s.


Thin people (or, more specifically thin women)*3 also contribute to the problem by claiming to be ‘naturally thin’ or otherwise trying to maintain the illusion that they were just lucky. There are a number of reasons for this. For one, while preferring food might be shameful, preferring sex is also shameful. Women are expected to be beautiful but they aren’t expected to try too hard otherwise it’s regarded as vanity, a sign of insecurity or neurosis (especially, of course, among young thin women who are presumed to be neurotic). There is something commonly felt to cheapening about ‘fake’ blonde hair, breast implants and cosmetic surgery in general, not as desirable as the ‘natural’, ‘real’ thing; people say they can tell if someone is ‘naturally thin’ or not as well*4. Thin people cannot talk about being on diets or avoiding food to save their bodies the way that average sized (marginally overweight) people can, for one because they’ll immediately raise the spectre of having an “eating disorder” which would of course, justify intervention to stop such vanity (or at least replace envy with ridicule), and they’d devalue what they were attempt to maintain (from she has a good body to stuck up skinny *****!). Of course, if someone thought at all logically about it they’d realize that if average sized people trying to get thin have to deliberately, as an act of will, restrict their diets, than thin people are obviously doing it as well, but the social discourse about weight seems to tolerate significant cognitive dissonance from fat and thin people around this.*5

The only people who seem to be free to admit the simple fact that weight gain and loss is the result of people’s deliberate actions (whether they choose to overeat or not) are those of average weight who are neither fat nor thin. They have both experienced “letting themselves go” and realized that they didn’t look very good when they don’t “take care of themselves”, and they’ve made an effort to lose weight and determine that its not worth it to them. These are also really the people that the food-obsessed dieting marketing is aimed at: obese are not in a position to acknowledge that their weight is the result of their actions because they’d be regarded as ‘irresponsible’, ‘lazy’ or ‘gross’ without the sympathy derived from it being ‘not their fault’, thin people can’t because they’d be regarded as ‘neurotic’, ‘vain’ or ‘sick.’

Obese people are basically hedonic addicts, and puritan morality despises addicts, but it excuses them if they can claim that its not their fault.*6 This is exactly what appeals to heredity do. More realistically the tendency for fat people to come from fat families is not unlike the tendency for conservative people to come from conservative families; weight is behaviorally dependent and the parameters of optimal behavior and level of tolerance for those who deviate from them are socially defined. White Americans are not fatter than the Irish, British, Germans and Italians because they have more fat genes; the have similar gene pools and a similar standard of living; they’re fatter than those European groups because they don’t care to stop eating as much because the social expectations are different so they can get away with indulging their desire to overeat more. Likewise the French aren’t thinner than the British because they have more thin genes but because they care about their appearance more and have higher average standards of appearance, which are socially defined differently. If genetics were a more significant cause of fatness than social expectations,*7 then the size of ones friends would be less predictive of someone’s weight than the size of their family members, and this is untrue. (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=69267)nk].

We want to deny personal responsibility for weight because we attach moral values to the choices that lead to weight. If people are able to discharge these values they could talk about weight and food honestly, but given how pervasive these values are at present, people have immense pressure to lie about what they’re actually doing, and lies sustained over time become self-deception. Once you have a conviction that your compromised status isn’t your fault, its easy to have a great deal emotionally invested in casting oneself as the blameless victim with the moral authority that that role entails, rather than the responsible party with the moral condemnation that comes with that role. The idea that people aren’t responsible for being fat is a self-serving myth, but society encourages those who benefit from it to perpetuate it and condemns them much more severely when they don’t.





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Footnotes:
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*1 Of course there are some medical conditions that make it easier for people to rapidly gain weight; however these have medical diagnosis and medical solutions, they are not responsible for the level of obesity in American/British/German society. If you have a thyroid problem you can take thyroid medication. No medical condition changes the laws of physics though, even pregnant women put on weight because they consume more calories than typical not because they store more than they put in. A fat cell or a muscle cell requires the same amount of energy to sustain it at a given size in one person’s body as in another persons body. Body shape is largely genetic but overall soft-tissue mass is behavioral.

*2although they clearly can’t eat whatever they want and they would get fat or at least, wouldn’t be thin, if they did, of course its also true that thin people want less than obese people...because they have smaller stomachs that require less food to feel the same degree of fullness...because they don’t *fill* their stomachs...because they don’t eat everything that they want to get full all the time. So it might require more will power for a fat person to get a thin body than for a thin person to maintain a thin body but its still a matter of will at all points.


*3I say, thin women not thin men because there is less social motivation for thin men to behave this way so they don’t. For one, it is obvious and well known that men with the most physically desirable bodies are in no way ‘natural’ or just blessed with ‘good genes’, they obviously worked out, so denying it would be absurd. Secondly, because men’s bodies were never considered someone else’s property they’re not contested by patriarchal elements, so no one worries if they’re ‘unnatural’ (and therefore tainted goods), if they’re taking control of their own bodies (rather than leaving that up to their parents or spouse) or escaping reproductive ‘responsibilities’. So the motivation to deny personal responsibility isn’t there for them.


*4what they mean by this of course, is whether someone is thin and attractive or thin and unattractive and they attribute the later as ‘unnatural.’ No one really has a ‘natural weight’ because weight gain and maintenance is behaviorally dependent and behavior is based on an interaction between individual personalities (which are largely artificial) and society (which is totally artificial).

*5Most diets do work because diets, by definition, cut out types or amounts of food from someone’s intake and that reduces their overall calorie consumption and they lose weight as a result. People think that “diets don’t work” because they lose weight while they’re on the diet but they then gain weight when they go back to eating whatever they want. This is largely the fault of diet marketing that sells it as being an easy short term thing when in reality, weight loss from diets only last if you never go back to your original eating pattern. The difference between fat people and thin people is that thin people restrict their diets indefinitely whereas fat people “diet” but then return to unrestricted consumption and with it their larger size.

*6Of course, this is totally arbitrary, there is absolutely nothing *wrong* or irresponsible about feeling compelled to do something that brings you reliable pleasure. The puritans don’t like addicts in part because they don’t like pleasure, they like self sacrifice for the community, meaning the people in charge of the community. However this doesn’t change the fact that being addicted to something, including overeating, is seen as disreputable in this society so it motivates excuses and alternative explanations and absolutions of personal responsibility. This is true even in alcoholism or drug addiction which are reclassified as mental disorders or diseases needing treatment since the only alternative available in puritanism is that they are morally wrong and those who participate are bad people. The AA have to tell themselves they’re “powerless” because having personal power and using it in a way that rebels against social expectations is more terrifying.

*7I say “social expectations” and not “media expectations” because I think the people who declare that there is ‘media pressure to be thin’ have it wrong. People find models attractive but they are clearly not socially expected to look like models in any reality; people are actually expected to be somewhat overweight in the west. More image conscious populations (say, those of professional/managerial class as opposed to cultural working class or investment class) might have more restrictive standards than less image conscious populations, but ultimately people feel social pressure when they are social outliers not when they’re part of the median in their peer group, so someone might feel ‘fat’ if they work for Conde Naste in NYC but feel ‘thin’ if they work GM in Detroit despite having the same size and socioeconomic status, due to the relative median sizes of their peer groups, and adjust their behavior accordingly.

TC
26th August 2007, 19:44
People are often born with a tendancy to be overweight it was on the news not so long ago people are often born with two fat genes making the metabolic rate slower causing them to feel hungier exercise obviuosly speeds your metabloism and some foods also.

Even if that was true, if you had a naturally slow metabolism you would simply need to consume less food, the issue is still the behavior of eating.

This is however, just not true for the majority of fat people: fat people have the same metabolic rate as thin people relative to their size and, in absolute terms, faster metabolic rates. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/healthy_living/your_weight/medical_myths.shtml)

It might be theoretically possible to have a genetic predisposition to overeating the same way it might be theoretically possible to have a genetic predisposition to aggression but for practical purposes its almost impossible to test for these things because the environmental interactions are too complex (and you ‘inherit’ an environment) and the traits themselves are arbitrary (where you draw the lines as to ‘fat’ or ‘thin’ has no material basis and while there is a material basis for overeating among adults, which is simply eating above maintenance level, children and teenagers ‘overeat’ in the same fashion its just but their calories are converted into bone, muscle and fat, rather than just muscle and fat, so they wont necessarily appear to get fat in the same way so the degree to which someone reduces their consumption at the end of their bone growth or maintains it affects if they get fat or not...which is why teenagers are on average thinner than 20 somethings of the same height.)



3) You can't inherit a large appetite. A large apetite is down to how slow or fast ur metabolism is which is down to how much exercise and what u eat.

But you have it the other way around; people with high metabolisms for their size have them because they exercise more so they feel more hungry than other people of their size and can eat more than other people of their size without gaining weight. People who are fat and sedentary also have higher metabolisms than thin sedentary people (but in proportion to their size) and they are likewise more hungry. Fat people’s metabolisms are not slower than thin people’s metabolisms, either relatively or in absolute terms.


Yes, of course.

Have you ever heard of a thyroid disorder?


Have you ever heard of thyroid medication?

The vast majority of fat people don’t have thyroid disorders, if they did they’d just take pills instead of being fat.



Of course not. I think the idea is just spread around in order to make fat people feel better about themselves. The causes of being overweight are overeating, eating bad food, and leading a sedentary lifestyle.

But realistically, the cause of being weight isn’t eating bad food or leading a sedentary lifestyle, its just overeating, eating when you’re more than full, always needing to be full, always satisfying hunger pains. It’s a total calorie issue and no one can exercise enough to make up for eating a brownie a day or snacking at midnight, the calories burned in exercise are insignificant compared to those consumed in snacks or meals.

And no food is “bad”. A calorie from a carrot builds as much fat as a calorie from chocolate (that’s human fat cells, not grams of fat, its too bad that those totally different things have the same name). Its an issue of quantity not quality.



i wouldent jump to conclusions so fast, a know several people who work out like crazy, eat good food, and take generally good care of themselves and still are a little chubby. no matter what they do they cant lose the extra body fat.

They snack and lie about it (or, are just confused that eating “good food” makes you thin no matter how much of it you eat), they do not defy the laws of thermodynamics pertaining to the conservation of energy. And, again, working out like crazy can change your body *shape* but it doesn’t significantly change your body *size*, no one loses significant weight just by working out because it makes them want to eat *more* and working out for hours burns fewer calories than a sandwich.

And anyways, lots of fat people binge eat and deny it or try to hide it out of the social shame attached to it (or even imagine that because they eat salad at lunch they can eat fried food in the evening). People lie about food for the same reason they lie about sex: because society tells people to be guilty for things they want to do even though they don’t hurt anyone else.


I do know that body types are inherited. My great grandmother was shapped somewhat round on skinny little legs. I only knew her in her old age and in her youthful pics her shape was thin but still shaped the same. My grandmother and now my mother have grown into that shape as well.
Sure, but shape and size are different issues; people aren’t responsible for the pattern that their fat is distributed in but they can control how much of it they have.

My mom had lyposuctiom to remove her belly fat and 10 years later she is shape the same as before the surgery.

That really doesn’t make sense because liposuction actually removes fat cells (whereas diet and exercise merely shrink them). But fat distribution changes over someone’s lifespan as well so it might have been coincidental (as in, had she not have had lipo she would have more fat on her belly and less fat elsewhere today).


Sheldon's Somatotype theory has categorised metabolism types in an interesting fashion.

I think you’re confused; somatotype isn’t the same as metabolism. People have basically the same metabolic rate as others with the same amount of soft tissue, activity, and sleep, unless there is something really wrong with them. This doesn’t mean that they’d have the same body type because bone growth and the distribution pattern of fat are based on genes (or rather, they’re based on hormones and hormones are often correlated to genes).


Originally posted by LSD+--> (LSD)
Right... 'cause the "overweight cabal" secretly controls medical research and has forced doctor after doctor after doctor to consistantly report that genetics play a significant role in determing body type.[/b]

Um, no, doctor after doctor do not report that genetics play a determining role in weight maybe shape and height but not weight relative to height. (or, maybe some doctors do but peer reviewed academic researchers do not; not all doctors are good scientists)

The belief that fatness is inherented doesn’t come from medical journals it comes from the media peddling to fat consumers with bad science that misinterprets the implications of research, and the zeitgeist’s assumption that this is the case without any real evidence.


Originally posted by LSD+--> (LSD)
If anything, there's social pressure in the opposite direction. There's a great deal of money to be made in selling diet products and exersize equipment and all other manner of "weight loss" product.[/b]

That’s rather absurd LSD, diet books and exercise equipment don’t have anywhere close to the consumer base of fast food in huge portions, of carbohydrate rich groceries, of the snack food industry. There’s a great deal *more* money to be made in selling people on behaviors that will make them fat.

When you commute to work you might pass a dozen or two dozen fast food restaurants, bagel shops, cafes with huge pastries and high calorie gourmet coffee; you probably don’t pass one diet book ad or gym.

Ideology might suggest that being thin is more desirable than being fat, but the balance of social and economic forces encourage the behaviors that lead to being fat, and as any Marxist knows, economics trump ideology when it comes to influencing human behavior on a mass level.

And anyways, the only thing that can make a fat person thin or a thin person stay thin is simple calorie restriction sustained indefinitely, and that’s not the type of diet that you can sell as a product because all it requires is math not lists of foods to avoid or to eat, and discipline and the entire appeal of diets is to get what you want without being disciplined because otherwise people who get fat in the first place don’t stick to them. Diets “don’t work” because people go off them.

Likewise, people not wanting to face the reality that only reducing how much you eat in absolute terms (not just cutting out “bad food”) is going to result in sustained weight loss like to think of exercise as an important factor in weight loss. Its really not, apart from professional athletes, people just don’t have the time to exercise enough to burn enough calories to make that type of a difference. What exercise is really about isn’t making fat people thin, it’s making thin people sexy, its for thin people who want to be thin toned people. It just doesn’t work for what fat people would want it to work for so they (understandably) give up on it and many are too embarrassed of their bodies to try in the first place.



In order to sell all the crap you've got to first convince people that they can actually accomplish something, which means first deluding them into believing that they can look like the models on the box.

The reality, however, is that most people will not and can not get that in shape or that good looking.

The human body just isn't that maleable.

The reality is that fat people can get that thin just not through any method that’s profitable to anyone, so there’s no motivation to advertise.

If any fat person just decided to eat 1600 calories a day for the rest of their lives (and never binged or snacked or went over that) and they just counted on the nutritional information labels of what they were eating, they’d eventually be thin (though not as fast maybe as on some crash diets that they wont sustain) and they’d stay thin. But, I’m not going to make any money from writing that am I? Whats effective isn’t marketable because anyone can do it so people market things that are superficially appealing but not effective.

But anyways, being good looking isn’t just about being thin, its about having an attractive face (which really is mostly genetic) in addition to being thin.

And, I also think its rather cynical to dismiss attempts to improve people’s appearance just because not everyone can improve their appearance to the same degree or has the same potential to be attractive. The fashion and cosmetic industries aren’t aimed at everyone and its only a liberal psudo-equal-opprotunities myth that would get anyone to think that using an unusually attractive model to sell something suggests that an averagely attractive person could look like them with that product. People are not inherently equal in this regard and some industries cater to people who are better off in it. Thin women buy more clothes than fat women, thin men buy more exercise equipment and gym memberships than fat men, so using desirable people in advertisements is in part a reflection on the fact that people who could potentially be desirable are a more lucrative market per capita than people who do not have that potential.


Originally posted by LSD
No matter your genetics, everyone is still capable of being healthy, it's just that it might be harder for some people than for others.

There are lots of genetic abnormalities that make people totally incapable of being healthy, there are plenty that are fatal in infancy. People aren’t made equal.


Originally posted by LSD

Body types ultimately have more to do with genetics and physiology than they do with nutritional intake.


To get someone from the body of an infant to a body of an adult is entirely depedent on nutritional intake. Even height has more to do with nutritional intake than genetics (the Dutch went from being the shortest people on average in Europe to being the tallest people in the world in the span of two generations; it was nutritional not genetic).

While the size of someone’s bones compared to others with the same nutritional intake and the pattern that their soft tissue, their fat and muscles, are distributed, is largely genetic, the overall volume of their soft tissue is directly dependent on their food intake.


Originally posted by LSD

1. Eating "outside meals" is recommended by every single nutrionist on the planet. The formalization of a "meal" system is part of why people get so damn fat.


Pretty obviously an exaggeration LSD, there’s no profession that every single member is going to agree on any particular point in and nutritionists are among the least standardized professions.

Anyways, I believe he was referring to eating outside of meals in addition to eating full meals, not instead of eating meals.

However, his attitude that its “not okay” to do something that makes a lot of people happy without hurting anyone else is moronically conservative and paternalistic. If someone likes eating snacks more than they like having a flat stomach than that’s a trade off that they should feel free to make according to their own personal preferences without judgment or moralizing. It simply has no value one way or the other.


Originally posted by LSD

2. "Junk food" is fun, and kids are going to eat it regardless. The way to instill good nutrion isn't to stigmatize "bad" foods, but to teach an understanding of how diet works and why.

I disagree. There are basically only two ways to get people to stop eating high calorie per gram food (like candy). Either stigmatize it (“that’s junk food!! Bad for you, very naughty!!”) or give a rational, self interest reason to avoid it (“you’d look more sexually appealing to boys and make your chubby girl friends jealous and vaguely deferential”).

Since parents are totally unwilling to give the rational explanation of why it might be a good idea (since you know, they want to control their kids not let their kids control themselves for their own purposes and hate the idea of them thinking about sex), they prefer to give the irrational but effective moralization which makes them associate their behavior with shame and then want to deny it rather than accept it for what it is: an equally valid choice. By seeing it as a ‘bad choice’, they grow up doing it anyways but denying the fact that it was a choice, and we get threads like this one.


Originally posted by LSD

3. It is "okay" to become fat! It isn't particularly healthy, but there's nothing "imoral" about it and it certainly isn't the worst thing that can happen to a child.

Secular western society has replaced “healthy” for “good” and “unhealthy” for “wrong”, it just replaced what the clergy say with what government approved doctors say.

That way it’s a moral system that seems so much more ‘rational’ and ‘scientific’ but it’s not. “Unhealthy” is the new popular term for “immoral” because the irrational nature of declaring things “unhealthy” is more mysterious to people than the obviously irrational nature of declaring those same things “immoral.”

200 years ago the same behavior would have been called ‘gluttony’ instead of ‘unhealthy.’ Health itself is an artificially defined category and when people refer to things as being healthy or unhealthy they are almost always referring to small relative statistical differences in population groups not significant absolute risks or causal affects.


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And if you think that eating that potato chip had the slightest effect on those children's conception of nutrition or eating

There is no one to one cause and effect relation but I think its obvious that people who are taught that certain behaviors are acceptable are at least marginally more likely to do them themselves than people who aren’t...which isn’t to say that many also don’t do the opposite, its merely weakly predictive. People still have free will. So, yah, of course it had the slightest affect it simply didn’t have a casual effect.

The real problem is thinking that a mother has to modify her behavior utterly with no regard for herself to squeeze even a fraction of an advantage in contributing to the most hypothetically optimal environment for her children. This is again the type of misogynistic pro-natalism that reduces mothers (and sometimes women in general) to only extensions of their children and not people in their own right.


LSD

It's almost like they think they're still individuals with personal rights! Shocking, truly, shocking...

You joke, but it is still shocking to a lot of people; its pretty common even in revleft to think that women lose their personal rights when they get pregnant and/or give birth.

The patriarchal responsibility of mothers to their children is mutually oppressive both to the mothers and their children; the mothers are told that they have to make their child the centre of their world and subordinate all personal desires to it no matter how trivial, intimate or personal; the children are told that they are inherently irresponsible, that their parents are responsible for them and that they have no will of their own. It subsumes mother and child into a single social unit where neither is permitted to be person in their own right with their own lives. If children are irresponsible it is precisely because every single responsibility they have is stripped from them by their parents, even such profoundly personal things as deciding what to eat or when to go to sleep, and if their mothers fail to dehumanize them in this manner they’re told that they’re bad mothers (and thus bad people since as women it’s the “Most Important Job They Could Ever Do tm”).

But because the patriarchy family is such a pervasive form of social organization, and given the fact that the vast majority of people grew up in patriarchal families even if they aren’t living in one at present, it can be hard for people to see the system itself as dysfunctional rather than people in the system. A family is said to be dysfunctional when it fails to instill the dysfunction and neurosis in its members that best preserves patriarchal social expectation. The women who choose to buy into it are praised as upholding some kind of civic duty (in patriarchal logic, self-sacrifice is for women the virtue that ambition is for men) and those who don’t are ridiculed in moralistic terms.