102 replies to this topic

[sprockets]

With regards to people's weight whether under, average or over there is this theory that the body has a set point or preferred weight that it will try to stick to. There's actually a hour long segment from BBC that tried to study it.

 

 

It's been several years since I've watched it but what they did was they took several skinny people and had them to overeat for a month to see what would happen - they did gain weight but once they stopped consuming those extra calories went back to their previous weight rather easily. If you have time you should watch it

 

When you think about it, it does kind of make sense since we are homeostatic creatures. 

 

Has anyone stopped and tried to think about this from a natural selection standpoint?

 

Not to dehumanize us as a whole, but we have to be aware of nature when having discussions like this.

 

Sure you could argue that it might be natural selection but evolution usually takes several generations to occur, plus that would also assume that those people aren't surviving to an age to reproduce and have offspring. While a lot of obesity related diseases occur later in life. Not to mention probably up until modern agriculture it was probably beneficial to store excess calories as fat because it's possible that you didn't know when you'd get your next meal. 

[NapisaurusRex]

I'm genuinely curious. Name the actual conditions. There are tons, so it should be easy, right? The whole idea of making someone else research it themselves kind of makes it seem as if you never have researched it yourself. I can't find a common medical condition that would cause someone to be severely underweight with treatment. Size is very much still within the average person's control. A medical condition would relate more to able bodied privilege than thin privilege.

 Hyperthyroidism, anorexia, IBS, cancer. It's easy to think treatment works for everyone, but the reality is that it doesn't, especially in the US. You can be "in treatment" your entire life and still not actually do anything about your illness, or have side effects or chelation that makes weight loss worse.. And there's things like migraines, where an "acceptable" treament (topamax) has the side effect of extreme weight loss. I don't know if you've ever been on a medicine where literally everything tastes like licking paint on top of causing medical anorexia, but it does make gaining weight next to impossible.
 

I obviously didn't read the previous page. 

[Tetiel]

Your sister is anecdotal, but she clearly wasn't eating right. Hypoglycemia is a medical condition she should have been seeing a dietician for. People do have different basal metabolic rates, which just means every person has to adjust according to their own needs. It's something people should be aware of, and something they very much can work around.
Not always, but it's not exactly common for weight not to be in someone's control. The average person does not have gastroporesis. It's a rare disease.

Yes, there are anecdotes, but I'm really not understanding why you're dismissing different metabolic rates. Also you -did- ask someone to list medical conditions and those were just a few. My sister ran cross country and track. While she COULD have eaten all day throughout her classes, I don't think it was exactly feasible for her. She was also dealing with severe tonsil issues at the time which could have easily contributed.

I've known many thin people in my life that eat a normal volume. I've seen the same of obese people. There is nothing wrong with that. But I also never said it was a privilege, either. Just stating that there are genuine medical conditions as to why someone may be lean or obese. My lab I'm working on my PhD is working on a transgenerational epigenetic link between DDT exposure in utero and increase in obesity. We've found consistent results in the F2 and F3 generations. My point is that someone's body is someone's body. You can't just look at someone and judge their health based on size because there are true genetic, transgenerational epigenetic, and other environmental factors involved that increase the susceptibility of disease.

So no, some people cannot help the way that their bodies are and getting back on topic, that very viewpoint that you have is kinda privileged in itself.

Reference:
http://bmcmedicine.b...741-7015-11-228