Good News And Bad News
If you’re overweight, the good news is that it may be primarily caused by genetics, rather than any sort of failure or lack of willpower on your part. The bad news is that your body doesn’t want you to lose it. And if you do lose it, your body wants you to gain it back. Which leads me to wonder: Doesn’t my body read Vogue?
Today, The New York Times published an excerpt from Gina Kolata’s new book, Rethinking Thin: The New
Science of Weight Loss — and the Myths and Realities of Dieting. It’s pretty interesting reading, and I’m resisting a lot of choice quotes.
70 percent of the variation in peoples’ weights may be accounted for by inheritance, a figure that means that weight is more strongly inherited than nearly any other condition, including mental illness, breast cancer or heart disease… The results did not mean that people are completely helpless to control their weight, [but] it did mean that those who tend to be fat will have to constantly battle their genetic inheritance if they want to reach and maintain a significantly lower weight.
[E]ach person has a comfortable weight range to which the body gravitates. The range might span 10 or 20 pounds: someone might be able to weigh 120 to 140 pounds without too much effort. Going much above or much below the natural weight range is difficult, however; the body resists by increasing or decreasing the appetite and changing the metabolism to push the weight back to the range it seeks.
Those who doubt the power of basic drives, however, might note that although one can hold one’s breath, this conscious act is soon overcome by the compulsion to breathe. The feeling of hunger is intense and, if not as potent as the drive to breathe, is probably no less powerful than the drive to drink when one is thirsty. This is the feeling the obese must resist after they have lost a significant amount of weight.
To me, this does not negate the need to eat healthily and get enough exercise. Far from it. It just means doing the best you can, and allowing your body to find a happy weight within your own genetically predetermined range. And then, once you get there, it’s an argument for not beating yourself up too much.
Thanks to Kari for sending me this article.
Posted by mo pie
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New Science of Weight Loss, my butt! There’s nothing “new” in these quotes. Those of us who are genetically predisposed to be fat already know all this stuff – it’s hard to lose weight in the first place and after you do, it requires constant vigilance to keep it off.
I also take issue with the analogy that, for the formerly obese, fighting the urge to eat is like trying not to breathe. I guess the author then goes on to reveal the “secrets” of choosing the right foods and spacing your meals appropriately.
Diet book authors must burn up a lot of calories coming up with new ways of spinning the same old, same old…
I don’t think it’s a “magical diet plan” book, though. I think it’s more of an exploration of current scientific research. I could be wrong, of course, but that’s just my sense of it based on the tone of the excerpt.
Mo, you’re right, according to the product description over at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Thin-Science-Loss-Realities/dp/0374103984/ref=sr_1_1/104-0211884-4455951?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178650195&sr=8-1. There are only two reviews so far, and one has already sparked a lively debate about whether the book is realistic or just plain depressing.
The title “New Science of Weight Loss” is a bit misleading though – to me that sounds like a conventional “diet” book.
Okay, so here’s a question…. Why are people inherently fatter now than before? It’s a fact that people are heavier and that the average size for a woman is now in the realm of a 14. Older generations don’t seem to have the weight problems that we have now.
Just my opinion, but I think it’s kind of bullshit. I think that the major food manufacturers don’t want people questioning the shit they put in our food to keep us fat and so they spin this story about how we are all going to be fat no matter what because it’s genetics.
If it is genetics then our genes have evolved because of the tasty chemicals we’ve been putting in our bodies for years. Ever notice that girls develop more quickly now than before?
I sincerely think that if we choose to eat organically (which not everyone can afford to do unfortunately), then some of this stuff would change.
Ugh! I just can’t get over the “Once fat, always fat” thing. I want to throw things right now.
Oh and I need to mention that I don’t want to throw things at anyone here… it’s just that the quote made me a little testy.
Kellie, I can’t claim to be a scientist, but it’s worth noting that we’re also taller, on average, than we used to be, and the average age of menarche in girls has been dropping for a long time. I’m definitely no fan of the junk food barons, but I don’t think it’s an either/or thing.
It’s only because healthy eating and weight loss have been so inextricably–and falsely–linked in our culture that we assume acknowledging a genetic component to fat = carte blanche for fatties to stuff themselves with junk food. (Not to mention that we assume all fatties are dying for that opportunity.) Personally, I love fruit and veggies and exercise, and I don’t love processed food (though I do eat it sometimes). It’s just that eating a balanced diet and exercising regularly don’t make me thin. Only eating a severely restricted diet and exercising obsessively do–I know, ’cause I’ve done it more than once. But as soon as I go back to normal eating and moving, I pop right back up to the weight range my body likes best.
As Susan said, those of us who are genetically predisposed to fat and have gained and lost large amounts of weight were already well aware of this. And yet, the media and culture usually insist that every last one of us must be lying when we say we didn’t gain it back by compulsively overeating and never getting off the couch; we just… gained it back. That’s incredibly frustrating, not to mention insulting and humiliating.
So I do a dance of joy when I see any acknowledgment that yes, genetically predetermined weight ranges might actually exist. Like Susan said, for me, it’s not news–it’s reality. And the more people recognize that reality, the closer we get to eradicating the bigotry that comes from framing fat as strictly a “lifestyle” issue.
Kellie, in addition to Kate’s GREAT response, please consider that up until quite recently, in the scope of history, people’s nutrition was somewhat hit or miss. Bodies did the best they could with the nutrition available and now OUR bodies do the best they can with the nutrition available. For some people this simply means growing taller. For others, it means growing fatter. For still others, it can mean any combination of a number of factors.
I am a fan of organics in a lot of ways because I am NOT a fan of chemicals (also, I have some weird food allergies and, blah, blah, blah). But I don’t think, if everyone were to eat organic, that we would all magically shed pounds and be thin. Fat and thin are not moral questions and neither is inherently better outside of our culture’s current fascination with thin bodies.
I agree that there is a genetic link/predisposition to being heavier or thinner. But I also think that our culture has a lot to do with it. Portion sizes in restaurants and packaged goods have increased drastically since the 1950s. At the same time, people’s occupations are far less physically taxing than they used to be (more office work, less farm and manufacturing work, greater automation of processes, etc.) For the last two or three generations, we’ve been conditioned to eat more, while at the same time we’ve been less active in general. Result: more people are heavy, and people who were already heavy are heavier than they used to be.
I know that my body gains weight easily. I also know that I developed some bad habits with food, and thanks to being a chubby, uncoordinated kid, I had bad experiences with sports, etc. Result: I became even heavier than my body might have become had I been eating healthier and enjoying more physical activity.
I’m always going to carry around a little more weight than some people — unless I’m willing to be all obsessive about diet/exercise, which I’m not. So, like mo pie says, I see books like this as a reminder not to beat myself up over the hand nature dealt me, and to stay healthier because it feels better, not out of any screwed-up expectations of attaining a size 4 ass. Because that shit just ain’t happening over here.
The recent change in weight doesn’t say anything about whether fat is mostly biologically controlled or genetic.
You have to think of the math here. The recent weight increase is only about 7-10 lbs on average. Remember the article pointed out that there’s a +/- ten or twenty lb “range” in which most people can comfortably move at any given time.
And that 7 lb average gain is superimposed on a background of a natural variability between people of several *hundred* pounds.
So what we’ve recently seen is just a shifting the bell curve up a couple of BMI points. But the bell curve is still more or less the same. And as Kate Harding pointed out, the exact same thing has happened with height over the past century, but that doesn’t mean we consider height to be a “choice.” (Though don’t get confused, the recent weight increase is not a result of the height increase).
(By the way even an average gain of only 7 lbs causes a huge increase in the incidence of “obesity” — a “pandemic” — because the threshold for “obesity” was already very near the peak of the bell curve. i.e. so many people were already so close to the “obese” threshold that just a small average changed pushed a lot of people over into it. You probably have to see it plotted out to understand how that works.)
Haven’t read the book so I don’t have any opinion about the actual premise, but Gina Kolata was on the Colbert Report the other night and she came off as a blithering, breathless idiot. Wikipedia says she has a degree in molecular biology from MIT so I guess appearances can be deceiving, but here is some criticism of her reporting.
Genetics and food availability and survival are all involved here. For evidence, please see the Papago tribe in Death Valley(actually, any Native American tribal group, but these folks have been studied a lot). Before the coming of the white man, their diet consisted of: occasional small animals and various plant species such as cactus pads and fruits in season. Since the coming of the white man, and the availability not only of Western European foodstuffs, but later of processed grains and sugars, they have developed an extremely high rate of diabetes. The Oneida tribe in New York State has the same issues and have set up a medical foundation to do research. The Papagos also have a huge obesity rate. Why is this? First and most important is natural selection. The only people to survive and reproduce in that environment, with those levels of nourishment available were those people who had the genetic predisposition to squeeze out as much nourishment out of the extremely small amounts of foods available. Once there were other and more abundant food sources made available to them, with no other changes, their weight soared. My genetic background is from extremely poor people from Eastern Europe who might have gotten red meat once or twice a year, chicken slightely more often and who more often than not had to survive on potatoes, cabbage and onions. My dad, born in this country of immigrant parents, was brought up on much the same diet, as the family was still poor, though they occasionally got a little more meat. My sister and I were born in the 1950s, during an economic boom. We had a huge and broad buffet of foods to eat, including lots of meat, fruits and vegetables brought from California, Florida and South America. My gall bladder went bad by the time I was 18 and my sister and I have struggled with weight issues forever. Add to that a work life that requires sitting on one’s bum for 8 hours a day and you’ve got a recipe for gaining and maintaining weight: genetics that squeezes out the most “bang for the buck” on the nourishment side and the propensity to survive during periods of little food plus lack of exercise. The Trifecta of weight gain.
I am the only fat person in my family, including my mom (who has an underactive thyroid). So I guess i can’t blame my genetics. Damn!
Bright side….at least I know that there is a chance that someday I will be thin again!!!
I’ve always known that there was a genetic component to my weight. My dad has always been a big man, his dad was always a big man, and his parents were big people…I’m sure it goes back further.
Food and exercise play a lot into it, obviously, but I doubt that I will ever be thin by the standards of our culture. And, really, I don’t want to be. I have wasted too much time hating my body and letting life pass me by. I am trying to love my body now and learn to move in the world more gracefully.
As for the author, my sense is that she is really critiquing all of the BS that has been coming out lately that really is more about making the diet industry money.
Well, I’ve met Gina Kolata (I worked with her husband), and she’s not a blithering, breathless idiot. But she is an author who needs to sell books and a reporter for an organization that needs to sell papers, even if it is the NY Times. That doesn’t necessarily excuse any biases, but it is the reality.
The book is most definitely not a diet book. It’s more of a “science for the masses” book, like most of her books. In this case, the science is body weight. I don’t doubt that some things in it are misrepresented, or twisted, or just plain wrong. But right or wrong, the belief in a body’s natural set point in terms of weight, one that resists being re-set, isn’t popular. Anything that implies that losing weight permanently requires daily, diligent, hard work which might ultimately be unsuccessful is especially unpopular today given the amount of money involved in the diet industry, as spinsterwitch points out.
Ultimately I wonder if that belief, if I decide I do believe it, would make me happier with my own overweight body? I don’t know the answer.