Genes in charge; their relation to weight

Hey Osso:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2649262#2649262

I'm glad you started a new thread though. It's really fascinating stuff. I'm interested in her book, too, may get it.

Sorry! I saw it was dated 5/8 but didn't see a thread, duh.

Oh it wasn't a thread, just a post within a thread. I think it totally deserves its own thread, and didn't realize that registration was required to read the article.

I know that you and I have been on the same page about this stuff for a long time, probably at least in part because we've read much of the same research. This article gathers it nicely and makes the case well.

I think you have to register to read the NYT or Chi Tribune or LA Times online, but not sure if it's still true - I registered at all of them a long time ago.

I seem to remember knowing even in the sixties that one always has the same number of fat cells. Which makes sense if Hirsch did that report in '59.

I wonder if there's any way to figure if it's the number of cells that is similar re genes, or different metabolic, uh, triggers.

Two points:

Fat families not only share a DNA code, they tend to share a fat-friendly environment.

Your chances for "normal" weight are improved if the family standard for a serving of pie is one eighth of the whole pie as opposed to one sixth or one quarter--or even, "Isn't he cute? He can put away a half a pie at a sitting."

I'm willing to admit that once you accumulate 100 pounds of fat cells, those fat cells are part of your burden for life. Still, it seems illogical that the current obesity epidemic has been caused by mass genetic mutations.

Once you have the fat, it is hard to lose the fat--but did the fact accumulate in the first place because of genetic doom or spoonful by forkful of extra calories.

That's exactly what the studies cited above address, though, Noddy.



Fat parents (who bestow lots of extra pie) adopt a child who was the product of two thin parents -- that child grows into a thin adult. Thin parents adopt a child who was the product of two fat parents -- that child grows into a fat adult.

As the scientists summarized it,

Not meaning to be rude or flip....

But does this all mean that fat people are breeding more?

Cause I love people watching but I am disturbed by the fact that the majority of people walking by, are fat.

So, if it is in the genes....

(Still thinking that some of those people are eating half a pie, not because their bodies demand it, but cause it's sitting there)

Interesting data though. Thought provoking.

Pretty much.

The quote I mentioned when I posted this was, "We are a species that has evolved to survive starvation, not resist abundance."

Abundance -- cheap and easy to get food -- is a relatively new development. The genetic predisposition to fatness has to interact with enough food for someone to end up being fat. The thing is, "enough" is far less than most people think, if the predisposition is there. Eating the pie isn't what does it, per se, as the person who doesn't have that predisposition can eat the same pie -- the same amount of food as the fat person, in general -- and not gain weight.

My thing here is not fatalism -- if someone is fat, I don't wish upon them that they read this and say "It's hopeless, I'll be fat forever, it's in my genes." Weight loss CAN happen.

My main interest is in how fat people are viewed. Don't be so sure that the fat person is gorging him- or her-self if he or she happens to be fat -- that person's diet might not be so dissimilar from a thin person's, it's just that the thinner person won the genetic lottery. And if a person with "thin" genes can eat less and exercise a bit and lose weight, that doesn't mean that a person with "fat" genes can put in only that much effort and also lose weight -- it might need to be a whole lot more effort. If the person does it, great! What an achievement. But if the person isn't able to do it, it's not necessarily fair to extrapolate from your own experience -- and that's something I see a lot of. (I'm somewhere in the middle I think -- I've been mostly thin and sometimes not-as-thin-as-I'd-like but not fat. My mom is very fat, which is part of my interest in this subject. My dad's thin, but has always exercised a lot and recently has been gaining weight after an injury. Not sure what my genetic place is.)

One difficulty here is that "fat" can mean everything from endomorph chunky to downright obese.

One of my stepsons dropped by today and I notice that like his father and one uncle, he's gone from scrawny/lanky through his teens, twenty's and thirties to a bit of a pot belly in his forty's. This fits the family pattern and the cited study.

On the other hand, he has an older brother, a heavy drinker, who developed the pot gut in his twenties and a younger brother who was a pudgy kid is now lean.

Both my father-in-law and my step-father-in-law died heavy men. Obviously they were not related to each other. The common factor was
my m-i-l who always cooked an extra portion of dinner, just-in-case. She liked seeing men eat and she loathed leftovers. She force fed each of those gentlemen an extra 300-500 calories a day.

Heredity and enviroment.

If being fat is determined primarily by the genes, why then is there this sudden and dramatic increase in the number of overweight people?

Perhaps fat individuals marry other fat people, produce fat kids, who then grow up to marry more fat people...

Soz! Looking down upon fat people is one of the last things we can do to spill some hate without getting called on.

Well, and smoking.

No, you can't take it away from us!

In all honesty though, is any of this study news to anyone? Are there seriously people walking around thinking all people are born with cookie-cutter-skinny one-size-for-all genes?

Of course not. And if so, the percentage is tiny.

We all know someone who eats like a pig and yet doesn't gain weight. Or someone who eats really well and takes care of themself, yet always stays a bit plumper - and curses that skinny one who dares to talk about diet and exercise. haha.

Here's how I see it: people are growing more and more disguisted with obesity. And they should be! It's a concern.
That doesn't mean go around poking fun at anyone who isn't a certain shape or size.

It just means that we all know that a certain level of obesity is bad, on a level beyond cultural and personal prejudice. Because it cripples and kills.

No more lame excuses for being fat. That isn't the answer.
Like Noddy and others pointed out: various shapes is one thing, obesity is another.

With what is available to today, there are no good excuses to blame anyone or anything for being obese. Genes or whatever, it's your personal responsibility to take care of yourself.

Is it really so wrong to have a certain aversion to those who appear like they do not take care of themselves? Again: I'm not saying acting on it in a shallow jerk fashion.
Simply noting. Hey, he's got gold teeth , she is fat.

I don't want to celebrate Obesity. Is that so wrong?

Middle ground is all I want to see.

Are thin people really healthy?

I started a thread on that a while ago, something about "belly fat", not the usual apple pear thing, but about abdominal fat in particular, with small response. The question is in the news again this week. (no links, see google).

Yep, I saw that too, on the Yahoo homepage.

This isn't what I saw, I don't think, but contains good info:



More here:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/belly-fat/WO00128

That idea is probably a good shorthand -- don't assume that thin = healthy or that fat = unhealthy.

And -- just to weigh in (heh) quickly -- the assumption that overweight people have given up, or aren't worth being kind to, or are lazy, or don't eat right, or are poor or stupid, etc. -- man! There are an awful load of stereotypes thrown around.

Even knowing that there is a genetic component how, exactly, does one put the horse back in the barn after the door's been open, or unring a bell? E. g. how to become thin again after the excess fat cells are there and it's too late and oops, guess what! You were supposed to be rigorous and nutty about it when you were 20 but you were too busy having a regular old life that suddenly, ha, it's all over and the whole thing is irredeemable unless you devote your life to weight loss.

As for the proliferation of overweight people, yes, of course, more calories and a sedentary lifestyle are a part of it, but what if the tendency to becoming overweight is a dominant gene? Or is it perhaps really turned on by the X chromosome? Does anyone address that? 'Cause I'm the product of a thin father and an overweight mother. Guess where I ended up? And guess where my brother did? It's not just us and not just now. Go back a few generations, both sides, and it's the same: thin or regular weight men and overweight women. A few exceptions, but only insofar as it's some very overweight men. Few thin women, and not without monumental lifelong struggles.

Belly fat is often a prelude to ovarian cancer and heart disease.

This is an important point -- while there are MORE overweight people now, it doesn't mean that it's something new. There have been overweight people for a long, long time. (When was the Venus of Willendorf created?)

Imagine that the genetic weight predisposition is a sort of a Kinsey scale. 0 is thin, 6 is fat. Throughout history, those who are 0 through 5 on the scale have tended towards thin-ness because food was simply not cheap and plentiful, and/or because a lot of energy had to be expended just to get the food. But the sixes were still fat -- their genetic predisposition was that strong. Then there were also the zeroes through fives who did have access to plenty of food, historically. The zeroes would stay thin no matter what -- their genetic predisposition was that strong -- but the ones through fives would get fat if they had enough food, fives more easily than ones.

So these days, there is plenty of food (and of dubious quality, but that's another issue). Sixes and fives get fat very easily. Threes and fours can manage things fairly well if they are careful. Ones and twos don't have to try very hard. Zeroes would have to put in a concerted effort to GAIN weight.

Yes, there will be some twos that gorge themselves and sit on the couch all day and if they were more careful and more active they'd be thin. But that doesn't mean fives and sixes could do the same.

Make sense?