A lot of it is also what you eat....unless that is what you meant by food intake.

Insurance companies might soon have a different view. Regardless, I'm fairly certain that most of the nearly one quarter of Americans who suffer from obesity and the full 50% of the population who are categorized as overweight didn't get to where they are due to a "genetics issue".

I'm not certain that society has failed anyone that consciously chooses to drink so much soda or eat every last bite of the huge portions that are offered on most menus. At the least I'd say that people are ill informed about what they eat, but I'd say most of the blame isn't on anyone else other than the person making their diet selections. I weighed 180 at my heaviest, but I've been at 160 for years thanks to the basic understanding that sitting in an office chair for ten hours a day means I probably shouldn't be eating that huge "recommended breakfast" that ends every cereal commercial and it isn't really a good idea to follow my co-workers when they have lunch at Olive Garden twice a week. Anyone that lives a sedentary life thanks to their job should have the brain to know their diet should be low calorie until they can get out and do something.

I do note that the poor are more likely to be overweight/obese and that while most will joke that obesity is a disease of the wealthy it really is the cheap food that contains so many calories and causes so much weight gain. Eating healthy, these days, is actually very costly. I think that the majority of the people can afford it, however.

That is overall... lifetime. Now, my meds/hormone issues and inabilty to exercise have a LOT to do with my weight.

hey kingswood.. off topic a bit but... since you seem to be comfy with latin.. what's a rough translation of ' don't let the bastards get you down'? looked it up online, and all my books are back in kansas.. so help a brother out :)

Your butt is wide, well mine is too
Just watch your mouth or I'll sit on you
The word is out, better treat me right
'Cause I'm the king of cellulite
Ham on, ham on, ham on whole wheat, all right

My zippers bust, my buckles break
I'm too much man for you to take
The pavement cracks when I fall down
I've got more chins than chinatown

Well, I've never used a phone booth
And I've never seen my toes
When I'm goin' to the movies
I take up seven rows

Because I'm fat, I'm fat, come on <-- this is supposed to be "sha mone"
(fat, fat, really really fat)
You know I'm fat, I'm fat, you know it
(fat, fat, really really fat)
You know I'm fat, I'm fat, come on you know
(fat, fat, really really fat)
Don'tcha call me pudgy, portly or stout
Just now tell me once again who’s fat ahhhhhh!ahhhh!

When I walk out to get my mail
It measures on the Richter scale
Down at the beach I'm a lucky man
I'm the only one who gets a tan
If I have one more pie ala mode
I'm gonna need my own ZIP code

When you're only having seconds
I'm having twenty-thirds
When I go to get my shoes shined
I gotta take their word

Because I'm fat, I'm fat, sha mone
(fat, fat, really really fat)
You know I'm fat, I'm fat, you know it
(fat, fat, really really fat)
You know I'm fat, I'm fat, you know it you know
(fat, fat, really really fat)
And my shadow weighs forty-two pounds
Lemme tell you once again who's fat

If you see me comin' your way
Better give me plenty space
If I tell you that I'm hungry
Then won't you feed my face

Because I'm fat, I'm fat, come on
(fat, fat, really really fat)
You know I'm fat, I'm fat, you know it
(fat, fat, really really fat)
You know I'm fat, I'm fat, you know it, you know
(fat, fat, really really fat)
Woo woo woo
(when I sit around the house
I really sit around the house)

You know I'm fat, I'm fat, come on
(fat, fat, really really fat)
You know I'm fat, I'm fat, you know it, you know it
(fat, fat, really really fat)
You know, you know, you know, come on
(fat, fat, really really fat)
And you know all by myself I’m a crowd
Lemme tell you once again

You know I'm huge, I'm fat, you know it
(fat, fat, really really fat)
You know I'm fat, you know, hoo
(fat, fat, really really fat)
You know I'm fat, I'm fat, you know it, you know
(fat, fat, really really fat)
And the whole world knows I'm fat and I'm proud
Just tell me once again who’s fat

I heard a humorous pseudo-Latin phrase that is something like: Illegitimi non carborundum.

(I'm not so good with Latin yet but I have a Latin dictionary with useful phrases and some good bookmarks in my web browser.)

Imagine the outcry if insurance companies refused to cover light-skinned people for skin cancer.

You were also quoting me out of context. You deleted the first sentence of the paragraph:
If everyone ate a healthy diet in moderation and got enough exercise, there would still be fat people. Some people have very efficient metabolisms, and others have inherited appetites that make it difficult to avoid gaining weight.

However, it seems you have completely missed the point that I was making. The difference between dark skin and light skin is about seven genes. A similar number of genes may be the difference between someone with a moderate appetite who can maintain a healthy weight easily, and someone who eats like a sparrow and still gains weight or someone whose appetite becomes ferocious if they lose five kilograms. Such people are only the unlucky recipients of a bad deal from the genetic deck, yet such people are often discriminated against to a degree that is not dissimilar to Apartheid-era South Africa or the Southern USA during the slavery era.

I didn't buy this at first, but I browsed around and found some interesting articles that detail how complex the issues is, including this one about stress.

That is some odd stuff. Point taken.

Yes, but the difference is you would basically only be left with the reasonably healthy overweight people, who would not have the same risk for heart disease and other problems. It's the diseases the insurance companies don't want to cover, not the larger sizes of their clothing.

Interesting. This was front page news today in the Washington Post because of the results of a new study.


The Abstract from Nature Medicine.

We look at those people who have very efficient metabolisms - 40 years ago. What is now considered normal was, back then, considered clearly obese. By today’s standards, there were literally no fat people back then. My grandfather was considered fat. Today about one in three adults are that fat.

Did genetics suddenly change in 40 years? What Kingswood posts can only be credible if people were also that obese 45 years ago. Back then we also were hauled to school in cars, trains, and buses. Nobody walked great distances. Why was fat so rare back then? Or has mankind's genetics changes in only 45 years?

I routinely look in other's shopping carts. I could not eat anything in the carts of the obese. We did not drink soda when I was a kid. It was a rare treat. Today, it replaces milk.

Like Kitsume, my waist is one inch larger than what it was in college. Two inches larger than in high school. I still eat in many ways the same as I did in wrestling. In part because I can measure a drop in intelligence when my diet slips. Yes, even daily intelligence changes with diet. And again, I am appalled at what I see in so many shopping carts. I would be dumb - probably have migraines - if I ate that junk.

Do you have migraines? What do you eat?

When it comes to a thrifty metabolism, that is me. Often I may only eat one major meal every other day. But then one does not get hungry when one avoids diet foods and that junk so common in obese people shopping carts. One gets hungry because the body did not get nutrition. Once you eat a cookie, you must eat half the bag - the body keeps demanding some nutrition in the form of hunger.

For youngsters who would become wrestlers - that is how one loses weight, is not always hungry, and wins matches. By eating right, a wrestler with only two years training had to win by outputting more energy. That meant nutrition – and no dieting. Learn that what you eat today affects even your intelligence tomorrow.

Kitsume has accurately defined the only thing that changed. Look at the crap in so many shopping carts - and that includes diet soda that will also contribute to weight gain.

An example: eat one carrot. Is it nutritious? Yes. It provides today's necessary vitamin A. Eat a second carrot. Is it nutritious? Of course not. More vitamin A is not required. Carrot also is higher in sugar. We already have too much sugar. That second carrot is junk food.

People brainwashed by nutrition taught in TV commercials would never learn that. I learned it from wrestling. My wrestling was only as good as my diet. That meant eliminating junk foods so as to lose 20% of my body weight - and eating nutritious foods so as to not be hungry.

What was necessary to lose weight and maintain my wrestling ability? Breakfast.

When the season ended, I put back 20% in two weeks. How? I continued to eat mostly as I did in wrestling. But, for example, I ate two hot meals for lunch. No junk food. No pizza, etc. We never had potato chips or candy machines in school. That 20% came back mostly as muscle. Again, it is not genetics as TV myth promoters would claim. It is not miracle diet foods. Exercising the abs does not flatten the stomach. All that is myth. People are obese mostly because of what they eat today. Then they jump for myths such as genetics - as if genetics has changed. If an obese person drinks a soda - diet or regular - then he is only fooling himself when blaming genetics. Obesity is directly traceable to the person himself - his destructive attitude.

Apple juice 45 years ago contained juice from apples. Today it is total corn syrup - complete sugar with no nutritional value. Genetics had nothing to do with that either.

Why put corn syrup in apple juice? US government subsidizes sugars. About one half the cost of sugar is paid for my government 'corporate welfare'. Nobody could sell apple juice make with nutrition. It costs more.

Fundamental difference between products from Kellogg’s and General Mills. The former has a long history of pushing low nutrition foods and hyping them as healthy. Nutribars? Total junk food. If you did not know that, then how are you staying at a healthy weight?

Insightful post, tw.

At what point did our community become oversaturated with junk food made of HFCS and fat? I have been thinking about this, lately and trying to determine where, when and how that shift took place. Does anyone have some insight on this?

I sure as hell wasn't skinny in college thanks to my diet. I'm still trying to get back in shape -- my food intake and weight may be somewhat normal, but I have a long way to go to make my bmi a healthy one.

Speaking of clothing sizes, I found it funny that the "fat rant" woman complained that she can never find her size at the major chain stores. It must be different for women, because I've experienced much the opposite: it is damn near impossible to find blue jeans with a waist smaller than 36 inches. 34? Good luck. 32? Ha! I have to go from store to store to find anything in my size because no one keeps the slimmer stuff in stock, anymore. You'll find piles of 38, 40, and higher rotating in stock on a daily basis, but there isn't as much demand for reasonable sizes, anymore, so they rarely get them in. And what is measured as a "32in waistline" isn't really 32 inches, either, since everything is "baggy", "comfort fit", and "loose fit". I've found I have to step down anywhere from 2" to 3" on the listed tag size to get it right.

My wife and I were just talking about that. I was complaining that I had to return a bunch of "large" polo shirts to Eddie Bauer because they were way too big. I've always worn a large. The medium fits me now. I haven't shrunk. I'm the same.

She says it's the fashions that are to blame. I used to wear my clothes baggier, and now the style is a tighter fit. So I always wore a large to get that baggier effect. Now I want a shirt that fits so I should get a medium. I don't know if she's right. Maybe I should dig through some old clothes in the attic and see if clothes have grown or if my perception has changed.

It's there, you just have to look for it.