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I don't buy the mostly genetic argument.
Never seen an obese person who got that way by eating meat and eggs. Maybe it happens, but I've never seen it.
It may, though, be a social thing. The family eats poorly, so the kids eat poorly and everyone is overweight. That makes it look genetic.
Don't drink alcohol; Don't eat salads; Don't eat processed foods. You'll be at your ideal weight.
Yeah. "Salads". You don't need all that stuff. You have to drench them with flavored machinery oil before they taste like anything. I never eat salads. 5'10"/ 180 pounds. Cholesterol 134; triglycerides 60.
Dieticians tell a different story. But they just teach us what they were taught. What if the book is wrong....?
It is. Not sure why.
Before your head explodes, I've had this same discussion with my doctor (I was 5 pounds heavier than you). That 185 was 10 pounds more than my last flight physical forty years ago. At that time the Navy was encouraging me to put on weight.
I'm now at about 190, down from 205 this past January. I stopped drinking 7UP, cran-raspberry juice and Hawaiian Punch.
Genetic predispositions do not make you fat, overweight or obese, only food can do that. Thyroid problems do not make you fat, overweight or obese, only food can do that.
There is no pill, surgery, or procedure that can stop you from putting food in your mouth. You must do it yourself.
80% of African American are overweight or obese, if this was genetic, then blacks would not also be considered the greatest athletes in the world.
As an African American, obesity and overweight is a cultural issue (endless American junkfood + comfort food of stresses of being black), it has nothing to do with genetics.
And I don't think it's specifically traditional "African-American" or "soul" food. We ate that food 50 years ago and earlier, and we were not obese.
It's the way we eat now--such as consuming calories nearly constantly through the day, eating while stressed, eating manufactured junk food as dietary mainstays (rather than "soul" food made from whole foods), eating far more fried foods cooked in processed vegetable oil rather than lard, and other differences in how we eat.
Fifty, sixty years ago, the food we ate was practically organic, and we did eat a lot less overall.
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Originally Posted by Listener2307
I don't buy the mostly genetic argument.
Never seen an obese person who got that way by eating meat and eggs. Maybe it happens, but I've never seen it.
It may, though, be a social thing. The family eats poorly, so the kids eat poorly and everyone is overweight. That makes it look genetic.
Don't drink alcohol; Don't eat salads; Don't eat processed foods. You'll be at your ideal weight.
Yeah. "Salads". You don't need all that stuff. You have to drench them with flavored machineryoil before they taste like anything. I never eat salads. 5'10"/ 180 pounds. Cholesterol 134; triglycerides 60.
Dieticians tell a different story. But they just teach us what they were taught. What if the book is wrong....?
It is. Not sure why.
I have 2 sons. My one son eats eggs, a lot, he is overweight. He is big, height estimators have him at 6'4 (he is 13) and my other son is carb freak, eats nothing but and a height estimated at 6'1 (he is 11). For some reason he doesn't eat as much, and is thin as a stick. He is smaller. Always chicken tenders and bread, no sauce, my older son eats anything. There is definitely a genetic or behavioral component to it. They don't even look the same, their physiques aren't the same, my younger son has a diet of garbage and is thin and my older son has a healthy diet, probably too much food though, but still his physique is totally different. He has been overweight since birth, my other son has been skinny since birth.
But if you do a Google Image search for pictures of people prior to 1980, you will see that most people are slim, not obese, so the current epidemic of obesity is clearly not uncontrollable because of genetics. If it were "largely" genetic, just as many people would have been obese 50 years ago. They were not.
While I don't doubt that the US has gotten fatter as a country, thinking back to 1980, my grandpa was overweight (always was, in my lifetime), and my grandma stayed a relatively healthy weight (but as a skinny fat person) due to a diet of mostly black coffee and Camel cigarettes. Their two children battled weight problems all their lives. I have two sisters, and 2 of the 3 of us struggle with it. So I definitely believe there's a genetic predisposition there. That isn't to say losing weight is impossible. But I do think some people are just better designed to store energy, and it's harder to get it off.
I am not sure it is genetic per se but I think some of the main factors in obesity are genetic. Such as Total Calories Burned. My mom had a low metabolism and so do I.
There is some science saying that you can't lose weight by reducing calories or increasing exercise because your body adapts. It is my feeling that everyone is different on this. I personally have a crazy adaptive body that easily adjusts to changes in food intake and exercise. So people do not.
I agree that sugar can be a thing that makes people fat an is probably leading to the obesity epidemic. But, I do not seem to have a problem with it. So though I am obese... reducing sugar or fasting has never had any real effect.
When I'm in line at the grocery store, it seems the carts of the heavy folks are filled with processed foods, chips and crackers and cookies, and sugary drinks. Or 12-packs of beer. I've yet to see a slender person's cart look anything like that.
We have evolved to store food as fat for hard times, so it's difficult to say there's not a genetic factor at work. Some people probably have stronger tendencies to store fat than others, just as random genetic variations.
As for how to treat it, there's been interest in the concept of intermittent fasting recently. It can help to reduce some weight, and experiments suggest it's helpful with type 2 diabetes. It's easier to manage than some of the other diets, since you basically eat normally -- just during certain times of the day. That style of fasting is probably more similar to how we humans lived in the wilds, only eating when food is caught or gathered.
Someone else mentioned it, and I mentioned it in another thread about school lunches and fat kids, but there are some people who you never see without some sort of food in their hand working its way to their mouth.
Then there are the people who have a plate of food at the meal and then load up a plate "for later".
I was at a reception years ago at a conference/convention. The reception hosts had steamed shrimp on the menu. Those poor hostesses were running piled up platters out two at a time every couple minutes. People were putting that shrimp in their pockets, their purses, just anything they could find that would hold something.
A couple days later there was a note on the convention bulletin board from an attendee complaining that the hotel was a pool of food poisoning.
Oh, the conference was for Maryland local elected officials.
"Never seen an obese person who got that way by eating meat and eggs. Maybe it happens, but I've never seen it."
"The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a national nonprofit, public health organization with more than 17,000 doctor members, slammed the U.S. Department of Agriculture today for its gift of $21.9 million to help the meat industry push its products on U.S. consumers, many of whom suffer from obesity, diabetes, and other ailments made worse by consumption of these products.
“Rather than marketing products known to contribute to our obesity epidemic and ill health, the USDA should instead support America’s farmers growing the very products, like fruits, vegetables, and legumes, that we know benefit human health, help fight chronic disease, and contribute to healthy weight,” says Neal Barnard, MD, FACC, president of the Physicians Committee and adjunct professor of medicine at the George Washington School of Medicine.
This announcement comes on the eve of the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health on Sept. 28. The conference looks toward ending hunger and increasing healthy eating so that fewer Americans experience diet-related diseases like diabetes, obesity, and hypertension.
“This is a clear case of the one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing,” Dr. Barnard says. “With the overwhelming evidence of the role of red and processed meat in chronic disease, it is imperative that the USDA advance policies not only to reduce and eliminate the consumption of these foods but also to encourage the further adoption of plant-based diets.”
While obesity rates and diet-related diseases in the United States are on the rise, nutrition and food policy in the United States does not adequately warn against the contribution of meat, poultry, and dairy products to obesity risk and its accompanying health problems. Also, current nutrition policy does not go far enough to highlight the benefits of a plant-based diet with regard to chronic disease prevention."
We have evolved to store food as fat for hard times, so it's difficult to say there's not a genetic factor at work. Some people probably have stronger tendencies to store fat than others, just as random genetic variations.
As for how to treat it, there's been interest in the concept of intermittent fasting recently. It can help to reduce some weight, and experiments suggest it's helpful with type 2 diabetes. It's easier to manage than some of the other diets, since you basically eat normally -- just during certain times of the day. That style of fasting is probably more similar to how we humans lived in the wilds, only eating when food is caught or gathered.
We know how similar it is...there are still people groups in Africa and South America who live like that. Anthropologists go there to study them.
Hunter-gatherer groups are, indeed, intermittent fasters...generally one meal a day. They don't "graze" as many people might think. They hunt and gather throughout the day then come together at the end of the day to prepare what they've hunted and gathered.
I've done jungle survival training. Finding edible plants in untamed nature is hard. And the plants you find are usually not edible plucked straight from the stem, but must be prepared in some way: Finely chopped or beaten or ground, then grilled or baked or boiled. Fruit isn't that plentiful in most environments and often must also be prepared. So, it's gathered and prepared at the end of the day. The hunters rarely manage a substantial kill of a large prey animal. More likely, they've spent the day collecting a handful of vermin. Whatever they've collected, again, they bring it back to be prepared at the end of the day. So, one meal a day.
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