General

nytimes.com/2007/05/08/health/08iht-snfat.5614611.html

I really quite like it, basically reaffirms what I've been saying about fat people for years.

Fascinating!

Particularly interesting to me were the conclusions that:

- fat people who lose weight will have to maintain an artificial and permanent state of "starvation" FOR EVER AFTER in order to remain thin;

- adopted people are overweight if their biological parents are overweight, with little or no influence from their adoptive parents;

- obesity is around 70% inherited, more than heart disease or breast cancer.

What's so shameful is that despite the first of those studies being carried out in the 1950s:

1. society still castigates fat people for being lazy, greedy or not having the "willpower" to be thin rather than treating them as those who have a condition that they can do precious little about, ie. it's exactly like highly inheritable forms of cancer only even MORE difficult to avoid if you have the genetic pre-disposition; and

2. the diet industry still peddles its rubbish on the "scientific" premise that diets "work" when clearly (in the long term) they don't. And can't.

Hmm.

Very good article and does confirm the theory that the fat are fat because they are heredically predetermined to be that way. It also explains that those who are naturally thinner would have a hard time gaining weight unless they ate a great amount and would have to keep to a high calorie intake to stay fat.

I personally would find it interesting to find whether the "fat gene" (for want of a better word) is quite dominant as throughout the western world in particular we are getting fatter. I know a lot of that has to do with diet with those that probably would be thinner than they are now, but it can't be the case for everyone who starts off slim and ends up fat.

The whole article does remind me of "Sheldons" body types, which in this day and age is considered rather outdated, but perhaps is not so far from the truth.

Ok, so you deny the possibility that fatness is genetic, yet state that you personally struggle to gain weight. Why do you think this is?

It's shocking how many people readily believe that it's possible for somebody to be 'naturally thin', have a 'fast metabolism', or just 'aren't hungry' and therefore find it extremely hard to gain weight, but when these ideas are reversed it's seen as just an excuse for fat people, who obviously are just lazy and eat too much.

This study indicates that it's not as simple as 'thin people don't eat enough, fat people eat too much'. It shows that our bodies fight hard at maintaining a set weight (whether this is thin or fat), by either speeding up or slowing down our metabolism if we gain/lose weight.

The study highlights individual difference and demonstrates the complexity of body weight. It's a brilliant study, and one that ought to be both explored and exploited further. Here is a similar article which talks of more recent research:

nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html

Yeah no shit haha that hell made me laugh
take a walk around Johannesburg or Cape town and you will see heapss of fat people lol

no fat people in africa hahaa
thats a good one

you sound like one of those people that think africa is all just jungles and wild animals running around lolol

SuperMango I don't think anyone is debating whether or not you can gain or lose weight if you adjust your metabolism consciously. I think what they (and Oni) were trying to say is that everyone has a genetic predisposition to be a certain weight whether thin or fat. The thing is the more you try and fight mother nature, the more she'll rear her ugly head. So if you want to keep your extra weight or lose weight you don't want it takes added, concerted, conscious effort and self control to adhere to the diet you need to attain the body type you want.

It's possible for anybody to lose/gain weight, it says this in the article. But what this study indicates is that while an originally fat person maintains a lower weight, their body is in a physical state of starvation. This offers a possible explanation as to why it's so difficult to keep the weight off, and why ultimately 95% of diets fail.

It's also a reason I choose not to diet or lose weight. I did and maintained a low weight ('healthy' BMI) for 5 years, and suffered from many of the side effects of starvation (my doctor at the time actually said this, and supplied me with a study about it).