I am interested in knowing what the members of sciforums have to say...

There are many reasons for people to be overweight, it's not always because they eat too much. However, they must eat more in order to go about their everyday life at the same level that others do. They must eat more, because they need more energy. Moreover, all obesity can be fixed with help.

Not always. Most of the time its becuase of that but its not always true.

There are many reasons for people to be overweight, it's not always because they eat too much. However, they must eat more in order to go about their everyday life at the same level that others do. They must eat more, because they need more energy. Moreover, all obesity can be fixed with help.

do you mean to say that if 60% of Americans are overweight, its because they need help?

Yes, they need help motivating themselves to excercise more and eat healthier.

Yes, they need help motivating themselves to excercise more and eat healthier.

Why would they need to be motivated? Do they want to be overweight?

you can't be overweight without eating too much otherwise you wouldn't be overweight you would be "big" like a bear.

Imo, it's a matter of how much energy you take on and how much you burn.
You can eat much, but then you also need to burn that off, or it stays in the body.

Hmm what would you say to the idea that beig fat versus being big is all a matter of metabolic regulation and that even how much energy you burn can manipulated by your body?

how much energy you burn can manipulated by your body
How efficiently, yes. It just might take more workout than for one with an efficient metabolism.

I meant apart from a workout or an exercise, just naturally, what if your body as an efficient engine (naturally geared towards conserving energy) can regulate energy balance by burning more or less fuel. That overweight as a disease is a manifestation of poor diet and environment over a long period of time, when consistent intake of poor or mal nutrient diets overcomes your bodys natural ability to take care of itself.

I think that the genetic factor should not be disregarded when talking about metabolism.

I agree, so how can you help an overweight person whose metabolism is genetically geared to conserve energy ?

Sign that person up for serious martial arts trainings.
A straightforward and simple method, but it works.

e.g. the Pima Indians who lived in a very rigid environment, with harsh living conditions and a diet with low energy densities when assimilated with the rest of the population gained weight with increased rapidity, reaching severe obesity at a faster rate, when compared to other groups.

Sign that person up for serious martial arts trainings.
A straightforward and simple method, but it works.

Assuming there are no other co-existing morbidities which can prevent the person from exercising. Also assuming that the overweight person is not a four year old. Or is not 200 pounds and unable to exercise. Say we do that, but since the genes are still the same, the excess weight is kept off only as long as that person follows this rigorous exercise ( ignoring the poor compliance rates of such interventions, that is). Of course, as soon as this person stops exercising the weight all comes back and then some.

What then?

Well, if that person stops the exercise, then nobody else is to blame, but him.

Of course a genetical treatment would be nice and ellegant, but such methods are still in their infancy.
Other possible solutions would be to inject that person with some genetically engineered energy burning bacteria, mechanically remove the fat or restrict the ammount of food for that person, so it feeds on its' own fat.

I am interested in knowing what the members of sciforums have to say...
there is only one reason for obesity and that is they consume more calories than they burn. so with that in mind one or the other or both of the following is true:
1. they eat too much
2. they don't burn enough calories

I believe that less intelligent people are on the average more overweight.

I believe that less intelligent people are on the average more overweight.

Explain

It is a well proven fact that over-weight people underestimate how much food they eat and over-estimate how much active they are.

It is very rare that anything apart from the food intake to energy burnt lead to being fat. But over weight people use this excuse to make their distorted view of excercise/food intake a more realistic excuse.

It is a well proven fact that over-weight people underestimate how much food they eat and over-estimate how much active they are.

So why do they eat more?

It is very rare that anything apart from the food intake to energy burnt lead to being fat. But over weight people use this excuse to make their distorted view of excercise/food intake a more realistic excuse.

So all people who eat more than they require become overweight? :)

I think we eat more because we can. Food has in the past been scarce and it paid to stock up.

Explain
Well, how smart is it to let yourself become overweight?

Fact:
People with lower IQ's on the average are more overweight on the average.

When 66.5% of the total population of a country is overweight with 30% obese, your claim of IQ as a risk factor is rather astonishing, don't you think? Especially if you cosider that these figures are almost double ( ~46 % and 15% ) of what they were in 1980.

Fact : Obesity has doubled in the US in the last 25 years.

And if you look at the distribution by state, it is certainly not average
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/index.htm

So what is your point?

Your map you provided:
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/index.htm

is very interesting, did you notice the area of the U.S that had the most obese people?

Do you know what type of people live in those areas?

When 66.5% of the total population of a country is overweight with 30% obese, your claim of IQ as a risk factor is rather astonishing, don't you think? Especially if you cosider that these figures are almost double ( ~46 % and 15% ) of what they were in 1980.

Fact : Obesity has doubled in the US in the last 25 years.

And if you look at the distribution by state, it is certainly not average
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/index.htm
Intelligence is dropping rapidly in the US. Most people today can't even form coherent thoughts or pay attention for more than a second or two.

The educational system has declined rapidly in just a generation and now kids are graduating who can't read or write. Expect more fat people as humanity devolves into retarded whining blobs.

So what is your point?

:) Well I'm seriously biased since I'm working on metabolism in obesity.

Obesity is currently an epidemic which is gobbling up a large chunk of national dollars. The estimated obesity-related costs alone in 2002 were $26 billion in medical costs and $45 billion for national costs. This is significant because it is half of the total medical costs

The very rapid increase in the last 25 years is ominous, it means the epidemic is out of control and the failure of interventions (dietary and exercise) means that we are basically at a stand still as to what can be done next.

Unfortunately, there are so many physical, metabolic, psychological and social factors which control food habits that it is difficult to have one intervention that can be applied to all. The main reason why people find it difficult to lose weight
(apart from the lazy stupid ones you know) are their failure to lose weight or to keep it off. It does not help that they feel guilty about being overweight or are ridiculed and scorned. Its important to recognize that changes in diet, physical activity, the type and variety of food available, the choices that people make, informed or otherwise, when selecting a diet, are not accompanied by simultaneous changes in your genetics and metabolism. It is also difficult to predict the effect of an intervention ( dieting=weight loss) on people because in people with a tendency to gain weight, it may be accompanied by a resistance to weight loss and short of cutting off the stomach ( a popular form of weight loss) or stapling it, there are very few measures that are 100% effective.

Most people have no idea of the extreme measures that seriously overweight people are willing to go to to keep off the weight. I've worked as a clinical nutritionist and seen the horrors following liposuction where allergic reactions set in; the adverse effects of weight loss pills eg diuretics leading to irregular heart beats and death. It is not a simple equation, that's all I'm saying. I'm not from the US and I was surprised at the intensity of negative feelings towards the overweight. Its a disease like any other and needs to be treated as such.

Since this is a biology and genetics forum, I as hoping to get some feedback as to the source of these negative feelings.

Perspective--and I'm just elaborating on what someone said earlier.

Throughout most of the history of Homo sapiens, food was not abundant. If we found it, we ate it. If there was really a lot because we managed to kill a mammoth, we'd finally store some, but that technology was primitive and we couldn't keep it for very long. Essentially life was a contest between starvation and survival.

An animal that evolves under those conditions has no instinct to eat less food than is presented to it, and we are no exception.

Fast forward to the age of agriculture. Finally we have a more or less steady supply of food, but guess what else happened? Our family size increased. Infant mortality was less in permanent farming settlements than in hunter-gatherer tribes. Also, the nomads from the surrounding areas kept migrating into our villages, stretching our supplies to the limit of what the surrounding land could harvest. (If you want to talk about immigration being a threat, this ought to be a sobering reference standard for how easy we have it today. Ever hear the Minutevermin shout, "The Mexicans are going to eat up all our food!"?) So there was still no reason to eat less than was available. You might put weight on but surely hard times would hit before long and you'd need that stored fat.

Fast forward to the age of civilization. Anybody who had access to enough food to actually become permanently fat must be really successful! Either a member of the royal family or else a skillful merchant. There was no onus placed on being fat. People died young (by our standards) of lots of nasty diseases and environmental conditions, so hardly anybody had the chance to identify the health problems we now associate with obesity. As recently as the Renaissance, as shown in the portraits in our museums, plump people were regarded as normal and even beautiful.

Eventually heart disease, joint failure, and all that other stuff came to be recognized. But this was only in the last few decades, an eyeblink in the history of our species and our civilization. Even in the 1950s people were expected to carry around substantially more weight than the "ideal" we're bludgeoned with today. Marilyn Monroe, whom I personally remember as the most beautiful woman who ever walked the earth, would be considered overweight now. These skin-and-bones, surgically-reduced wraiths who parade across our TV screens would have been thought of as Auschwitz survivors and anybody who saw one would have grabbed her, dragged her into their kitchen, and started feeding her fried chicken and milk shakes in a desperate attempt to keep her from expiring on the spot.

So this is what we're facing. Tens of thousands of years of human developement, during which obesity was unknown but starvation was common. A few centuries during which obesity became familiar but was not known to be a health risk and was evidence of success. A span of about three generations during which obesity became common and health risks were identified. Ultimately, a decade or two during which the media found a new cause and the "tyranny of svelteness" set a standard that is associated with ugliness and bulimia.

E.g., we call overweight a "disease." That is pathologically incorrect yet the term is widely accepted. Overweight is a syndrome, a condition resulting from varied and complex causes. Telling fat people they're sick is not going to endear us to fat people and they will simply tune us out or possibly just sit on us and squash us until we shut up or die from not having enough cushioning fat to survive the pressure.

An "illness" perhaps, like "mental illness," another term that doesn't make friends everywhere it goes, but not a disease.

Just a couple of decades ago we Americans were a people who walked a little, did some physical work around the house, ran errands, played with our kids, did some gardening, and in general just about barely engaged in enough physical activity to keep ourselves on the margin of healthiness. Now we have the internet, cell phones, and satellite TV. Our average work week has stretched from Henry Ford's sacred forty hours to fifty. (I did a paper on this, trust my stats.) Our children are raised by nannies, we spend two or three hours a day in a car seat, and our meetings at work are held by phone or NetMeeting so we don't even get to walk to a conference room. Due to real estate price inflation we live in smaller and smaller quarters so there's nothing to clean, no garden, no pets, and the walk to the bathroom is about five feet. We all pay to belong to gyms, but we never find the time to go there.

But we still have the same instincts programmed into our brains as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who had to eat 3,000 calories a day to survive their exhausting life. To say that fat people eat too much may be true but it's a mean and useless truth. Fat people eat what every cell in their bodies tell them to eat. The people who have reprogrammed themselves to be satisfied with a 1,200 or 1,500 calorie daily intake--those are the strange ones, they're the ones that are going against nature.

Another problem is dieting. It appears that people who have never dieted have a higher maintenance diet than those who have. Our bodies regard any decrease in food intake as evidence of a famine, and they become more efficient at getting by on what's available. After a couple of famines--and what dieter hasn't dieted ten or twenty times?--the body wises up and says hmmm I'd better store up as much fat as I can because the food supply around here is really unreliable. I suppose this model is controversial but it certainly matches my observations of dieters vs. non-dieters.

We can tell people to exercise more but the one thing we can't do is lighten up their other responsibilities so they have the time and energy for it. These are people who don't get home until they're children are asleep, so they're not going to stop at the "health" club on the way.

Americans have enough on their minds. Telling them they have a "disease" and that they have to cut back on life's one remaining pleasure, eating, is pointless. They're not going to pay attention.

And no, I'm not overweight. I'm cursed with a nearly debilitating level of nervous tension that burns off about 1,500 calories a day over and above my maintenance diet. I've never yet met a fat person who would trade places with me.

Perspective--and I'm just elaborating on what someone said earlier.

Throughout most of the history of Homo sapiens, food was not abundant. If we found it, we ate it. If there was really a lot because we managed to kill a mammoth, we'd finally store some, but that technology was primitive and we couldn't keep it for very long. Essentially life was a contest between starvation and survival.

Yes, and the likelihood of starvationn was greater, so that those people whose metabolism was geared to store as much as possible ( rather than lose it as heat or in futile cycles which dissipate energy in the body) were more likely to survive.
BTW, did mammoths ever co-exist with humans? ( I don't know, I was under the impression that they were in completely different time periods)

An animal that evolves under those conditions has no instinct to eat less food than is presented to it, and we are no exception.

Fast forward to the age of agriculture. Finally we have a more or less steady supply of food, but guess what else happened? Our family size increased. Infant mortality was less in permanent farming settlements than in hunter-gatherer tribes. Also, the nomads from the surrounding areas kept migrating into our villages, stretching our supplies to the limit of what the surrounding land could harvest. (If you want to talk about immigration being a threat, this ought to be a sobering reference standard for how easy we have it today. Ever hear the Minutevermin shout, "The Mexicans are going to eat up all our food!"?) So there was still no reason to eat less than was available. You might put weight on but surely hard times would hit before long and you'd need that stored fat.


And agriculture had the added advantage of providing food at regular intervals, so that food insecurity was decreased.

Fast forward to the age of civilization. Anybody who had access to enough food to actually become permanently fat must be really successful! Either a member of the royal family or else a skillful merchant. There was no onus placed on being fat. People died young (by our standards) of lots of nasty diseases and environmental conditions, so hardly anybody had the chance to identify the health problems we now associate with obesity. As recently as the Renaissance, as shown in the portraits in our museums, plump people were regarded as normal and even beautiful.


Plus there were a lot of skirmishes over land through war, invasions, etc. so surviaval was limited by factors other than food

Eventually heart disease, joint failure, and all that other stuff came to be recognized. But this was only in the last few decades, an eyeblink in the history of our species and our civilization. Even in the 1950s people were expected to carry around substantially more weight than the "ideal" we're bludgeoned with today. Marilyn Monroe, whom I personally remember as the most beautiful woman who ever walked the earth, would be considered overweight now. These skin-and-bones, surgically-reduced wraiths who parade across our TV screens would have been thought of as Auschwitz survivors and anybody who saw one would have grabbed her, dragged her into their kitchen, and started feeding her fried chicken and milk shakes in a desperate attempt to keep her from expiring on the spot.

Quite right, in fact, this is still true in many parts of the world. Being overweight is considered a sign of plenty

So this is what we're facing. Tens of thousands of years of human developement, during which obesity was unknown but starvation was common. A few centuries during which obesity became familiar but was not known to be a health risk and was evidence of success. A span of about three generations during which obesity became common and health risks were identified. Ultimately, a decade or two during which the media found a new cause and the "tyranny of svelteness" set a standard that is associated with ugliness and bulimia.

Yes and the NHS started getting concerned with the problem only in the 80s when they realised that about 15% of the population was obese and that this group is statistically more likely to suffer from heart disease which was then the number one killer in the US ( still is, I think), directly contributing to increased national medical costs.

E.g., we call overweight a "disease." That is pathologically incorrect yet the term is widely accepted. Overweight is a syndrome, a condition resulting from varied and complex causes. Telling fat people they're sick is not going to endear us to fat people and they will simply tune us out or possibly just sit on us and squash us until we shut up or die from not having enough cushioning fat to survive the pressure.

And claiming they have lower IQs, lack self-control or are lazy will?

It is a disease, if a defect in your metabolism ( due to whatever reason) changes the functioning of the cells in your body in such a way that it affects the normal functioning of your cells, and cannot be compltely reversed. Uncontrolled fat deposition is a symptom of obesity just as uncontrolled cell proliferation is a symptom of cancer ( for example). We are born with a set number of fat cells which is genetically determined; they have a set threshold as to the amount of fat they can hold. These levels are monitored by specific hormones which act as sensors.

In addition there are other sensors which monitor levels of other nutrients.

e.g. Access to high fat high sugar containing foods, high in calorie but low in nutrients, create an imbalance in the nutrient sensors. e.g. the fat sensors say"you're done" but other nutrient sensors say " nope, not yet". Over time, since the other nutrient sensors are not satisfied, the body stops listening to the fat sensors and they no longer function. Fat cells fill up with more lipid than they can hold, there is a pressure to increase the number of fat cells, which is actually akin to saying, I'm starving and we need more fat cells cause the fat sensors are not saying you're done.

Now, even if you exercise or diet, the fat in the fat cells will decrease, but the numbers will not go back to the original ( this is a survival mechanism or starvation memory, if you like). In addition, the fat sensors have no idea what is going on and though some of them may go back to normal, the reversal may not be complete, may not even happen, in fact. Its a phenomenon called resistance, which also occurs in diabetics where there is insulin resistance.


An "illness" perhaps, like "mental illness," another term that doesn't make friends everywhere it goes, but not a disease.

Just a couple of decades ago we Americans were a people who walked a little, did some physical work around the house, ran errands, played with our kids, did some gardening, and in general just about barely engaged in enough physical activity to keep ourselves on the margin of healthiness. Now we have the internet, cell phones, and satellite TV. Our average work week has stretched from Henry Ford's sacred forty hours to fifty. (I did a paper on this, trust my stats.) Our children are raised by nannies, we spend two or three hours a day in a car seat, and our meetings at work are held by phone or NetMeeting so we don't even get to walk to a conference room. Due to real estate price inflation we live in smaller and smaller quarters so there's nothing to clean, no garden, no pets, and the walk to the bathroom is about five feet. We all pay to belong to gyms, but we never find the time to go there.

But we still have the same instincts programmed into our brains as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who had to eat 3,000 calories a day to survive their exhausting life. To say that fat people eat too much may be true but it's a mean and useless truth. Fat people eat what every cell in their bodies tell them to eat. The people who have reprogrammed themselves to be satisfied with a 1,200 or 1,500 calorie daily intake--those are the strange ones, they're the ones that are going against nature.

Another problem is dieting. It appears that people who have never dieted have a higher maintenance diet than those who have. Our bodies regard any decrease in food intake as evidence of a famine, and they become more efficient at getting by on what's available. After a couple of famines--and what dieter hasn't dieted ten or twenty times?--the body wises up and says hmmm I'd better store up as much fat as I can because the food supply around here is really unreliable. I suppose this model is controversial but it certainly matches my observations of dieters vs. non-dieters.


This is related to what I said about fat cell numbers and is the reason why it is harer and harder to lose weight, the more you diet. Starvation only increases the tendency to store energy.

We can tell people to exercise more but the one thing we can't do is lighten up their other responsibilities so they have the time and energy for it. These are people who don't get home until they're children are asleep, so they're not going to stop at the "health" club on the way.

Americans have enough on their minds. Telling them they have a "disease" and that they have to cut back on life's one remaining pleasure, eating, is pointless. They're not going to pay attention.

Which is why diet and exercise interventions are largely unsuccessful.
And they have to pay attention, because it is not going to go away.
And saying its a disease does not create a stigma, and offers the possibility of a cure, as compared to saying you have a low IQ or you eat too much.
And actually you are wrong here, most obese people are relieved that it is a disease, because it measn there will be either a pill or surgery to follow. The difficulty actually lies in convincing them that pills alone cannot make it go away. That is a major source of disappointment.

And if the only pleasure left in your life is eating, how would you react to someone saying "eat less"?


And no, I'm not overweight. I'm cursed with a nearly debilitating level of nervous tension that burns off about 1,500 calories a day over and above my maintenance diet. I've never yet met a fat person who would trade places with me.


And finally, regardless of diet, environment and physical activity, there are ALWAYS individuals in EVERY society (even the Pima Indians) who simply WILL NOT GAIN WEIGHT. So, is there a difference in their metabolism or in their genes which enables them to regulate their energy balance more effectively. e.g. do they have greater muscle turnover when they eat more? Are their diets more varied? are their nutrient sensors less efficient? do they need less nutrients ( more conservative , less wasteful)? The answer is, I don't know.

But there are individual differences in the responses to energy intake based on a variety of dietary and genetic factors ( e.g. adequate calcium appears to decrease the deposition of fat as compared to low calcium diets).

So as you can see I agree with you with some reservations, except that there are too many unresolved questions to be able to reach any definite conclusions

this fucking world, were everyone is not born the same, were everyone is not given a choice to decide, were life tends to kill slowly all hope to be "normal" as everyone else is around, the happy egoistical types that dont deserve the happiness they have.

A little different response than I expected; but look at at it this way.

The normal people are the ones you don't really know.

Obesity in Minority Populations
Overweight and obesity in the U.S. occur at higher rates in racial / ethnic minority populations such as African American and Hispanic Americans, compared with White Americans. Asian-Americans have a relatively low prevalence for obesity. Women and persons of low socioeconomic status within minority populations appear to particularly be affected by overweight and obesity. Cultural factors that influence dietary and exercise behaviors are reported to play a major role in the development of excess weight in minority groups.

Prevalence
The prevalence of overweight (Body Mass Index (BMI) of 25 or more) and obesity (BMI of 30 or more) increased over the last decade across racial / ethnic groups, as shown in Table 1.
Mexican American and black (non-Hispanic) adults in the U.S. are considerably more overweight and obese than white (non-Hispanic) adults.
Read the AOA fact sheet,What is Obesity? for more information about BMI and
to calculate BMI.

The American Indian population also has high prevalence rates of overweight. Among the highest rates reported (overweight defined as BMI of > 27.8 for men and > 27.3 for women) are for American Indians in Arizona at 80 percent for women and 67 percent for men, according to researchers of the Strong Heart Study in 1995.
Gender

For women, the black (non-Hispanic) population has the highest prevalence of overweight (78 percent) and obesity (50.8 percent).
For men, the Mexican American population has the highest prevalence of overweight (74.4 percent) and obesity (29.4 percent).
Overweight, obesity and severe obesity (BMI of 40 or more) prevalence increased for men and women in various racial / ethnic groups in the U.S. over the last decade.

Socioeconomic Status (SES)
Overweight affects African American women and men across all SES levels.
Minority women with low income appear to have the greatest likelihood of being overweight.
Among Mexican American women, age 20 to 74, the rate of overweight is about 13 percent higher for women living below the poverty line versus above the poverty line.

Health Disparities
Many obesity-related diseases including diabetes, hypertension, cancer and heart disease are found in higher rates among various members of racial-ethnic minorities compared with whites.

Diabetes
Diabetes has been reported to occur at a rate of 16 to 26 percent in Hispanic Americans and black Americans, aged 45 to 74, compared with 12 percent in whites (non-Hispanic) of the same age.
Higher BMI predicts the risk for type 2 diabetes in Pima Indians. Type 2 diabetes affects about half of the Pima people.
Among 15 American Indian tribes studied in Oklahoma, 77 percent of adults screened for diabetes are reported to be obese.
Among Mexican Americans, obesity and type 2 diabetes are both increasing, unlike other risk factors of cardiovascular disease including smoking and blood pressure, which are declining.

Cancer
Obesity appears to contribute to the higher risk of pancreatic cancer among black Americans than among whites, particularly for women.

Heart Disease
Among African Americans, the high prevalence of obesity and obesity-related conditions such as hypertension and type 2 diabetes, are factors reported to contribute to their high death rate from coronary heart disease.
In a study of older Hispanics, with an average age of 80, obesity was found to be a risk factor for developing coronary artery disease.

Hypertension
The high prevalence of obesity is reported to be a contributing factor to the high prevalence of hypertension in minority populations, especially among African Americans who have an earlier onset and run a more severe course of hypertension.

Behavioral Risk Factors Diet & Exercise
Cultural factors related to dietary choices, physical activity, and acceptance of excess weight among African Americans and other racial-ethnic groups, appear to play a role in interfering with weight loss efforts.
Sedentary life style, which can contribute to the development of obesity, has been reported by 44 to 60 percent of Native American men and 40 to 65 percent of women.
African Americans and whites report that they exercise less as they get older, however, African American women of all ages report participating in less regular exercise than white women.
African American men, age 45 and older, report less regular exercise than white women.
http://www.obesity.org/subs/fastfacts/Obesity_Minority_Pop.shtml

Blacks and hispanics also have the lowest IQ levels.

Mexican American and black (non-Hispanic) adults in the U.S. are considerably more overweight and obese than white (non-Hispanic) adults.

Blacks and hispanics also have the lowest IQ levels.[/

Let me see the logic you are proposing:

Logic 101

Major premise Mexicans are overweight
Minor premise Mexicans have low IQ
Conclusion Therefore overweight have low IQ

This type of relationship is called a syllogism where the conclusion is derived from the major and minor premise.

syllogism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllogism)

Your reasoning ignores the following premises:
Some Mexicans are not overweight
All overweight are not Mexicans
Some Mexicans do not have a Low IQ
All people with a low IQ are not Mexican

This process of elimination of universal ( applicable to all) and particular (applicable to some) premises is called deductive reasoning. If some premises fail to establish a commonality in the relationship between the major and minor premise, that relationship is no longer valid.

Now if you accept what I said above,

here is some information where, in the case of one ethnic group, we were able to establish the causes of overweight.

Pima Indians (http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/53/6/1577S)

This was in 1991 - 15 years ago
if you click on the link for similar articles in pubmed, you will find out how much research has been conducted on this one ethnic group alone. Unfortunately what little we know has not enabled us to help even the Pima Indians successfully and the differences between ethnic groups being so hard to locate and even pinpoint ( which one is the particular cause in (1)the group and (2)the individual) we truly do have a long way to go.

Frankly,the people working on these studies and the ones providing the billions of dollars for the research have given a little more thought than you and I. I haven't taken a survey but I doubt that their IQ levels are as suspect.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/5608/856

Here are some more references. A lot of work is being done in these areas and it is incredibly challenging and frustrating, at the same time.

Mexican American and black (non-Hispanic) adults in the U.S. are considerably more overweight and obese than white (non-Hispanic) adults.

Blacks and hispanics also have the lowest IQ levels.
Noting that the "big booty" is considered attractive in such communities, perhaps they have a more favorable outlook on obesity than white people who are critical of it.

In any case, who are you to judge what is right?

I'm sorry if I gave the impression of being judgemental; I was just surprised at the level of hostility towards overweight people is all. I have lived on 3 different continents in the last 10 years and I am sorry to say that some of the most intolerant people I have met have been in the US.

samcdkey,
I did not say any of the things you wrote, please do not change my words.

Let me keep it simple:

On the AVERAGE hispanics and blacks have the highest obesity levels of any other groups of human on the planet earth.

On the AVERAGE hispanics and blacks have the lowest IQ levels of any other groups of human on the planet earth.

samcdkey,
I did not say any of the things you wrote, please do not change my words.

Let me keep it simple:

On the AVERAGE hispanics and blacks have the highest obesity levels of any other groups of human on the planet earth.

On the AVERAGE hispanics and blacks have the lowest IQ levels of any other groups of human on the planet earth.

You've polled all the blacks and hispanics on planet earth??

samcdkey,
Your on a computer right now, this is very simple research, here I will just do it for you:

Hispanics Blacks and Obesity

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Hispanics+Blacks+and+Obesity&btnG=Google+Search

Hispanics Blacks and IQ:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=blacks+hispanics+and+IQ&btnG=Google+Search

I would have thought the Somalians would have brought down the black AVERAGE considerably for overweight :rolleyes:

Ditto for the hispanics...

I'm talking about the combined effects of immigration plus diet plus metabolism

You do realise that the percentage of population that comprises the blacks and hispanics is significantly lower than the Caucasians

What you are talking about is correlation as in there is a significant correlation between the number of people who buy dental floss and the incidence of road traffic accidents.

Correlation is not causation. It may indicate a common factor (e.g. more people in city, hence more people buy dental floss. More people in city hence more road traffic accidents.) But to say that people who buy dental floss cause traffic accidents????

I did some research on the black-white divide and in IMO (which you are free to discard) the autors of The Bell Curve did not correct for for underlying differences in environment and their data requires serious re-analysis.

When you say black, white, asian or hispanic be very certain you are comparing between similar groups ( education, socio-economic status). Comparing a child brought up in poverty and malnutrition to one in a nutritionally and financially secure environment is not science.

There is a world of difference between an OBSERVATION and a CONCLUSION.

I observe that the black minority show a diiference of one standard deviation from the Caucasians in IQ is very different from I conclude that they are less smart. IQ tests are not infallible; though they predict school performances with great accuracy, they are only weakly correlated to earning power. They do not measure wisdom, creativity or personality.

Here is an example to explain what I am saying:

Notice how quick people are to do things properly when they fall lower on the scale: :rolleyes:

Do Asians have higher I.Q.s than whites? The answer is probably yes, if Asian refers to the Japanese and Chinese (and perhaps also Koreans), whom we will refer to here as East Asians. How much higher is still unclear. The best tests of this have involved identical I.Q. tests given to populations that are comparable except for race. In one test, samples of American, British and Japanese students aged 13 to 15 were given a test of abstract reasoning and spatial relations. The U.S. and U.K. samples had scores within a point of the standardized mean of 100 on both the abstract and spatial relations parts of the test; the Japanese scored 104.5 on the test for abstract reasoning and 114 on the test for spatial relations--a large difference, amounting to a gap similar to the one found by another leading researcher for Asians in America. In a second set of studies, 9-year-olds in Japan, Hong Kong and Britain, drawn from comparable socioeconomic populations, were administered the Ravens Standard Progressive Matrices. The children from Hong Kong averaged 113; from Japan, 110; and from Britain, 100.

Not everyone accepts that the East Asian-white difference exists. Another set of studies gave a battery of mental tests to elementary school children in Japan, Taiwan and Minneapolis, Minnesota. The key difference between this study and the other two was that the children were matched carefully on many socioeconomic and demographic variables. No significant difference in overall I.Q. was found, and the authors concluded that "this study offers no support for the argument that there are differences in the general cognitive functioning of Chinese, Japanese and American children."

http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/atoms/xtra1/herrnstein-murray-tnr.html

Look samcdkey,
I really don't care how or why blacks and hispanics on the average have low IQ's and are so obese.

That is a whole other thread.

I'm just pointing out the fact that they are.

In any case, who are you to judge what is right?
I don't think I said what is right or wrong on this issue, I'm just pointing out how things are.

I'm sorry if I gave the impression of being judgemental; I was just surprised at the level of hostility towards overweight people is all. I have lived on 3 different continents in the last 10 years and I am sorry to say that some of the most intolerant people I have met have been in the US.
I bet your a fatass.

Frankly I don't care what you bet.
I'm working in this field for 10 years and I am presenting my arguments in support of why I believe what I do. It does not mean I am right or wrong, just that I am defending my position. If you disagree present me with a cogent argument. No scientist worth his salt would accept your reasoning. If you look at the forum, you will notice it is a Biology and Genetics forum. My arguments are directed to the forum not to you personally.

It's easy,

If you eat to much and do not exersize you will be fat, if you allow for this to happen to yourself, that would be a sign of unintelligence.

Ahh of course. I got it.

Thank you for the input.

I mean it, really. Without you, I never would have known about "The Bell Curve" and the black-white IQ divide, it never would have occured to me that one reason for hostility to overweight people is because of their lower IQ.

So, I am glad you clarified matters for me. You've been more helpful than you realise.

Fat and stupid is never a good thing

Fat and stupid is never a good thing


Now now, don't be shy; :rolleyes:

Tell me what you really think.

It's not like you to give up so easily

BTW, did mammoths ever co-exist with humans? ( I don't know, I was under the impression that they were in completely different time periods)Yes. For centuries they've been digging up frozen mammoth carcasses in Siberia that are well enough preserved for dogs to eat. Estimates of the date of their extinction range from 8000BCE to 4000BCE but they certainly more or less thrived through the last Ice Age. If they ever recover enough intact DNA to analyze we'll know more about their taxonomy but the mammoth was basically a woolly elephant and lived at the time of the other cold-adapted megafauna like the woolly rhino and the cave bear.In addition there are other sensors which monitor levels of other nutrients. e.g. Access to high fat high sugar containing foods, high in calorie but low in nutrients, create an imbalance in the nutrient sensors. e.g. the fat sensors say"you're done" but other nutrient sensors say " nope, not yet". Over time, since the other nutrient sensors are not satisfied, the body stops listening to the fat sensors and they no longer function. Fat cells fill up with more lipid than they can hold, there is a pressure to increase the number of fat cells, which is actually akin to saying, I'm starving and we need more fat cells cause the fat sensors are not saying you're done.I've noticed that discrepancy at home, except it's the wrong way around. I'm the one who's never been on a diet. I can eat fat until I explode, but a big bowl of rice fills me up for hours. My wife, who has dieted a number of times, can eat bread faster than she can make it, but a good helping of fat shuts down her appetite.And if the only pleasure left in your life is eating, how would you react to someone saying "eat less"?"Read my finger."And finally, regardless of diet, environment and physical activity, there are ALWAYS individuals in EVERY society (even the Pima Indians) who simply WILL NOT GAIN WEIGHT. So, is there a difference in their metabolism or in their genes which enables them to regulate their energy balance more effectively. e.g. do they have greater muscle turnover when they eat more? Are their diets more varied? are their nutrient sensors less efficient? do they need less nutrients ( more conservative , less wasteful)? The answer is, I don't know.In my case the difference is in nervous tension. My body is wracked with muscles in spasm. It took me years to realize. I'm sure there are many people who can "magically" consume an extra 1,500 calories a day or more and don't know where it's going.

Yes. For centuries they've been digging up frozen mammoth carcasses in Siberia that are well enough preserved for dogs to eat. Estimates of the date of their extinction range from 8000BCE to 4000BCE but they certainly more or less thrived through the last Ice Age. If they ever recover enough intact DNA to analyze we'll know more about their taxonomy but the mammoth was basically a woolly elephant and lived at the time of the other cold-adapted megafauna like the woolly rhino and the cave bear.I've noticed that discrepancy at home, except it's the wrong way around. I'm the one who's never been on a diet. I can eat fat until I explode, but a big bowl of rice fills me up for hours. My wife, who has dieted a number of times, can eat bread faster than she can make it, but a good helping of fat shuts down her appetite."Read my finger."In my case the difference is in nervous tension. My body is wracked with muscles in spasm. It took me years to realize. I'm sure there are many people who can "magically" consume an extra 1,500 calories a day or more and don't know where it's going.


Hey what a surprise! I thought this thread was dead!!

I agree with D'ster that if you eat too much and do not exercise you will become fat, if you allow for this to happen to yourself, that would be a sign of unintelligence. Not only unintelligent, it is irresponsible and stupid - No different than drinking too much or smoking too much or anything else done in excess that will lead to poor health

BTW Its hilarious the way BCE & CE has come into use rather than BC & AD - both mean the same thing and the same date, so by twisting the words, the politically correct nerds of society have dreamt up a way so as not to offend the "other" faiths. How fucking pathetic!

If they want to be really clever - pick another time and date as the anchor - tosspots :rolleyes:

BCE = Before Christs Era

CE = Christs Era

LOL!

I can think of a POV where being fat is mostly not your fault, in America anyway. I spent 3.5 years living in Singapore where I had to struggle KEEP my weight up. I played sports and did weight lifting, and in the words of my friend after discussing how he eats a generous steak meal as a snack "If I don't keep eatting I'd wither away" (he was like 230 lbs and low body fat % and a former body building champion). I was 180 lbs over there and struggling to stay up. It wasn't due to cultural foods, I still mostly ate a western diet which was easy to do.

When I came back to the US I was spoiled for choice, but I took the same approach to my diet. After like 3 months I was horrified to find I had a rather large (for my standards) gut. My first response was to have the same diet I had in Singapore because I realized I had been eatting a little more. I'd only measured how much to eat by my hunger, and in the US with all the food additives to make you feel unsatisfied regardless of how much you actually ate I was over eatting. So I made myself eat the same basic meals. I found that still was not enough. Part of the problem was, for example, even though a peanut butter and jelly sandwich seemed by taste to be the same, in both countries, the US version was much more unhealthy (and unsatisfying, it was a struggle for a little while to suppress the urge to eat, I couldn't get to sleep out of hunger, often). Additionally, I had better gym access in the US and had even put on more muscle.
It took me about a year to adapt to US foods. I have to thoroughly scrutinize all nutrition facts these days and count my calories. Once I started to really pay attention, I had to cut like 75% of my regular foods from my diet that I used in Singapore, because at a regular grocery store in the US, 95% of things have an absurd greater proportion of fat than protein. And so much saturated fat (and trans fat, and things like "poly unsaturated fat" which they use to get around having to label the effective saturated fat). To stay in shape (about 12% body fat atm) I don't ever have any unhealthy foods even in the tiniest proportion (candy, cake, holiday foods). It has also required no alcohol for 2.5 years. I also pretty much never eat anything when I go out to dinner, or at dinner at someones house. It seems weird but once you grasp how large of a setback that is it is an easy choice for me. Things would be a lot easier if I could afford to shop at health food stores with more natural, unprocessed, selections.

I've kept track of this happening to four other people I know from Singapore who moved back to the US. Without fail they all suddenly got fat.

I do believe if you are over weight it is your fault, but in the US things are pretty ridiculous. Look at what kids are fed at school...they can't really help that they will get fat (although growing up here I did not find it a problem personally, probably high youth metabolism). And for someone like me who has been athletic throughout life to suddenly develop a gut in 3 months with no intentional changes... it says it all. It took me about a year to undo that damage. I find that absurd. On low budgets it is quite hard for an American to eat healthy enough to stay thin no matter how much he works out.

In my case the difference is in nervous tension. My body is wracked with muscles in spasm. It took me years to realize. I'm sure there are many people who can "magically" consume an extra 1,500 calories a day or more and don't know where it's going.

Can you explain about nervous tension please?

Apologies if this has been said already, this is a long thread!

I have heard (correct me if wrong :) ) that we lay down our fat cells before age 5, thus if we are overweight before age 5, we will hence forth always regardless of cumsumption struggle with our weight, being predisposed to being over weight, and the opposite is true if underweight or normal.

this is a long thread!

try these on for size:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=1078560#post1078560
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=41645&page=1&pp=20

There is one common denominator... if anyone, no matter what there issues, creates a mild caloric deficit each day, there is no other option but weight loss. And making a mild caloric deficit is not that hard if you know a few nutrition basics.

Can you explain about nervous tension please?Many of my muscles are always in spasm. Constantly exerting their force against each other. Unconscious isometrics. Sometimes they limit my mobility, other times they simply hurt. I get aches in my neck so bad that they incapacitate me with pain. My wife can't walk down the street with me holding hands because after a couple of minutes I've cut off the circulation in her fingers. I've gravitated into avocations where constant tension can be a resource, such as off-road motorcycles and guitars, but on the balance it's been an extremely negative part of my life. I've taken medications, done exercises, stretches, yoga, meditation. It all works actually, over the years my condition has improved. By the time I die I'll probably be able to relax.

I suppose the best part of it is that it burns off a lot of calories. When I was younger and weighed 150-160 pounds I was eating a 3,000 calorie diet. Now I'm 62 and weigh 180, and I still eat 2,500 calories. I was raised in a family that made food life's greatest pleasure, so I guess in a way I'm lucky. I doubt that I could diet.

I agree with D'ster that if you eat too much and do not exercise you will become fat, if you allow for this to happen to yourself, that would be a sign of unintelligence. Not only unintelligent, it is irresponsible and stupid - No different than drinking too much or smoking too much or anything else done in excess that will lead to poor health

The proof is the fact that the people who are the most overweight on average ,are also the same people with the lowest IQ levels on average.

http://www.obesity.org/subs/fastfacts/Obesity_Minority_Pop.shtml

You know Dster it really doesn't matter how many links you come up with the simple fact is until ALL or even a majority of any group have been tested the research proves nothing. It's like us polling the beautiful woman on the Earthe when we haven't seen EVERY woman on the Earth, the results are meaningless.

People can be handpicked from anywahere and the people that volunteer for such studies are also likely to be from a certain background especially if there is a cash incentive to participate. Statistics can be manufactured to reveal anything you want them to.

The proof is the fact that the people who are the most overweight on average ,are also the same people with the lowest IQ levels on average.

http://www.obesity.org/subs/fastfacts/Obesity_Minority_Pop.shtml


There is no proof as MOST overweight people have NOT had their IQ tested.

Meanwhile I see alot of FAT proffessors on tv.

Im pretty sure Marilyn Monroe wasnt overweight (nor would she be considered overweight today).

Im pretty sure Marilyn Monroe wasnt overweight (nor would she be considered overweight today).

she was size 14 so yes by todays standards she would be considered over weight. I was once told I was overweight but never had a mm of loose flesh on me.

Marilyn Monroe was really hot for being overweight.

I have a friend who works out all day, he says that I'm overweight because I weigh 20 lbs more than him, and I have abs(somewhat). I think body type goes into the equation of being overweight, right?

Maybe your just taller then him. Thats kind of mean that he says your overweight. Thats not his concern or anything.

I have a friend who works out all day, he says that I'm overweight because I weigh 20 lbs more than him, and I have abs(somewhat). I think body type goes into the equation of being overweight, right?

Overweight just tells you your weight. A body builder is overweight. A weight trainer is overweight. It does not tell whether your weight is fat or muscle.

The relationship of body type (somatotype) to weight is based on William Sheldon's somatotype theory.

Here is a link explaining it.
http://www.kheper.net/topics/typology/somatotypes.html

Keep in mind that this is a simplistic theory and we are mixtures of different body types. :)