Looks like fat people may be able to blame their genes after all... well, a little bit anyway.

not that interesting a read actually.

The article just states that thin people have the thin genes and fat people have the fat genes.

Not much food for thought there.

🧢🧢🧢

Liberal propaganda. If youre fat its because you live an unhealthy lifestyle. End of story.

This is not new. In fact this is accepted science. By the way we also landed on the moon and Galen Rupp won a silver in the 10,000m.

From what I recall reading back when I did 23andme the genes that have been identified as having an impact on weight makes only like a 5% or so difference. So a person with the 'fat gene' (which I have btw) will have roughly 5% more body fat than if they didnt have the fat gene. For me it explains why I have never really been able to obtain a visible six pack unless I am very dehydrated. But it cannot explain people being significantly overweight, thats on them, not their genes (at least so far as science can say).

I would think many of us here on LetsRun carry the fat gene and would've been fat without the amount of running we do. Actually I think it could be an advantage because then you're probably automatically fueling enough and not in the red zone for developing RED-S.

I think there is something to it, but there is no way it can explain the "explosion" in the numbers of obese

people in the last 30 years.

Back in the sixties and seventies, "obese" people were relatively uncommon, now there are as many

"fat" people as "thin" people.

Genetics cannot explain that type of increase.

OozmaKappa wrote:

🧢🧢🧢

Liberal propaganda. If youre fat its because you live an unhealthy lifestyle. End of story.

You are generally a very unreasonable poster on these boards and I hate most of the crap you say, but I have to agree with this. It’s so, so bizarre to have watched over the course of my lifetime every little thing wrong with people be given some kind of justification. Nobody is just bad at what they do anymore, nobody is stupid, if you are poor you may blame the invisible hand of the evil system. Social media and quick access to other people’s thoughts have turned the entire human race into a parody of its former self.

Thanks bro. 🗿

It may sound harsh to say being fat is a choice, but it is. Now that doesnt mean people wake up and on that day choose to be fat.

No, what I'm saying is that being obese is a reflection and a direct consequence of habitual bad choices, lack of self restraint,

Nobody magically ends up obese out of nowhere. How you become obese is by repeatedly indulging on things you ought to know are not good for you despite feeling good: giving in to sloth and gluttony.

OozmaKappa wrote:

Thanks bro. 🗿

It may sound harsh to say being fat is a choice, but it is. Now that doesnt mean people wake up and on that day choose to be fat.

No, what I'm saying is that being obese is a reflection and a direct consequence of habitual bad choices, lack of self restraint,

Nobody magically ends up obese out of nowhere. How you become obese is by repeatedly indulging on things you ought to know are not good for you despite feeling good: giving in to sloth and gluttony.

Agree!

Other than VERY small differences generally (I mean, there ARE super rare extremes on both ends of fat or thin that involve BIG differences), we are all the same.

We have way too much evidence to prove that, from super fat people going on diets and exercising and becoming thin people to people who have their food intake restricted because of war, etc.

Matter is not created from nothing. Calories in vs. calories burned. We all burn calories at VERY similar burn rates. Some people have a food addiction or don't care about their weight gain or just like to eat a lot, or whatever.

If you want to be a certain weight, get out a calculator, count the calories and what you burn each day and make it happen. It is that simple.

i am too thin wrote:

I am guilty of thinking fat people are just lazy and eat way too much, but, apparently that may not be totally true. Seems us skinny people actually just do have a much easier time staying skinny than fat people. I guess it's not like they can't be thin, just that it's likely a lot harder for them to stay thin then for skinny people. Their genes make it harder for them and easy for me.

That being said, i still don't think there is an excuse for how obese a lot of people are, they clearly just eat way too much, but, I see that it is likely more mentally/physically difficult for them to be actually skinny.

Interesting read anyway:

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/slim-people-have-a-genetic-advantage-when-it-comes-to-maintaining-their-weight

Of course some people have easier to gain weight. My father has been thin all his life while I (52 years old) really have to struggle not to get fat. That doesn´t change the fact that when I grew up there where very few fat people.

Assuming your information is accurate, the 5% is just an average. It is totally possible some people are impacted more than others.

yes and no wrote:

From what I recall reading back when I did 23andme the genes that have been identified as having an impact on weight makes only like a 5% or so difference. So a person with the 'fat gene' (which I have btw) will have roughly 5% more body fat than if they didnt have the fat gene. For me it explains why I have never really been able to obtain a visible six pack unless I am very dehydrated. But it cannot explain people being significantly overweight, thats on them, not their genes (at least so far as science can say).

A bunch of BS, people are fat due to lack of self control. I'm pretty lean, yet I come from a family of fatties. Why? Because of the choices I make everyday vs. the choices they make everyday. For example, staying sober, limiting junk food, exercising daily. Not that hard to put 2 and 2 together here. But fatties will eat this stuff up so they don't feel as guilty.

like really bro wrote:

A bunch of BS, people are fat due to lack of self control. I'm pretty lean, yet I come from a family of fatties. Why? Because of the choices I make everyday vs. the choices they make everyday. For example, staying sober, limiting junk food, exercising daily. Not that hard to put 2 and 2 together here. But fatties will eat this stuff up so they don't feel as guilty.

Bingo! Same situation for me. Very frustrating.

Generally, I agree. I think lifestyle choices account for most differences.

I would be interested, however, to see genetic data from people from ancestral hunter-gatherer populations. The ancestors of some Pacific Islanders and Native Americans were, until recently, on a boom-and-bust hunter gatherer lifestyle. This rewarded fat storage much more than an agricultural lifestyle where food was more readily available. Some populations of Pacific Islanders went through very intense selection events for being able to go a long time without food.

If you read The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond, he describes the indigenous people of New Guinea (where he did did a lot of field work) as able to do entire days of hard labor with no food. They simply eat more the next day, or whenever more food is available. Most "Westerners" just couldn't do that.

I would suspect that within the Caucasian/African/Asian cultural axis where agriculture has been plentiful in most places for a while (some exceptions in Africa), diversity for fat storage is pretty low. But elsewhere it might be higher.

blurred line wrote:

Assuming your information is accurate, the 5% is just an average. It is totally possible some people are impacted more than others.

Sure, but that still won’t explain the vast differences we see these days. I’m not a stats major but I know enough to be dangerous. It is pretty well accepted that if you take 6x your standard deviation (5% total deviation here so 30% total, or +/-15%), you’ll encompass 99.7% of the possibilities.

So how many fat people do you know that weigh 30% or more than the skinniest person you know?

Look at pictures of people early in the 20th century compared to people now. Apparently there has a been a genetic shift that caused this endemic. Or maybe genetics are a minor factor.

U. Raynuss wrote:

I think there is something to it, but there is no way it can explain the "explosion" in the numbers of obese

people in the last 30 years.

Back in the sixties and seventies, "obese" people were relatively uncommon, now there are as many

"fat" people as "thin" people.

Genetics cannot explain that type of increase.

Nobody who has studies the issue thinks it does. Genetics is part of the explanation of why person A ends up fat in this environment while B doesn't. People like to attribute their good qualities to hard work and their failings to genetics/bad luck. They also do the reverse when talking about others. Do you exercise 60 mins/day because you are disciplined and the person who does 0 mins is a sloth or do you exercise because you are a druggie who enjoys that big dopamine hit while the 0 min guy just isn't as receptive to that drug?