KAR said:
I completely agree.
ha, this is funny. I've really flip-flopped with my opinion on this. I used to cut people who lost the genetic lottery some slack, but I don't anymore. Nobody is ever forced to stuff themselves, eat crap food all of the time, or be ignorant of what they are eating. So now I'm back to what I originally think. Bad genes just means you have to work a little harder, but you can still be healthy.
I love it when people blame genetics on the fattening of America also. There is no genetic change that is creating the obesity epidemic that is occurring. The pic that I attached to this shows this, but it may be difficult to read.
Definitely.
If genetics was such the dominant factor, then Americans would have been fat all along, not just in the last 20-30 years, a time during which our genes have not changed but our lifestyle has (a lifestyle that also happens to be completely consistent with our weight gain).
I heard somewhere that they say it is 1/3 genetics (not sure if they shoved a bunch of numbers up their ass and just pulled one out or what, how the hell can you quantify motivation and effort), but even if that is so, then its 2/3 behavior and behavior is twice as important as genetics now, isnt it.
There are two reasons why people tend to favor the genetic explanation. For one thing, people would rather think they cant help being fat rather than it being in their control, so they dont have to feel bad about not trying hard enough to fix it (if that sounds harsh believe me I understand that it is hard, I have done it, but you have to take responsibility and control over the things that you are able to, for your own sake). The other is arrogance (not necessarily of the worst kind).
To illustrate, consider two books that I have read. The Zone by Barry Sears (I liked the idea of the diet until he made one for dogs, eating such a low calorie diet made me skeptical, but after the Canine Zone I just couldnt take that guy seriously) and The Promise of Sleep by William Dement. Barry Sears says that we eat too much carb, too little fat, out insulin levels are out of whack, no wonder why Americans have such a high rate of heart disease. William Dement says that we have enormous sleep debts that we need to be paying off, it is wreacking havoc on our bodies, no wonder why Americans have such a high rate of heart disease.
Could both sleep and diet have something to do with the quality of a persons health? These two very briliant men seem to ignore the obvious, either because they are blinded by their arrogance, or they are so focus on the ridiculos detail of what they are studying that they are failing to see the big picture.
Unfortunatley, it is human nature to believe that what one is good at has more inherent value that what another is good at, and you dont even have to be a jerk to think that. Even if a doctor/scientist truly wants to help people, he/she is inclined to think that they are the one who is gonna do it and that their research, their field, and their topic is what is really going to do it (I wonder if perhaps scientist think other variables arent contributing to what they are studying is because they keep them constant, unless they cant keep them constant which is probably the case when dealing with people anyway). That is why scientists, doctors, and even students in these fields have a tendecy to favor the genetic argument, seeing that it is their field, what they are good at, and what they have to offer.
Another thing about genetics and obesity. I used to work with patients that have Prader-Willi syndrome, and I saw them lose weight before my eyes by modifying their lifestyle (actually, they might have also been on drugs I didnt know about, but still they lost weight). If someone with Prader-Willi's can lose weight (granted they are forced to), what the hell is America's problem. It's not their genes.
Yet another thing. I remember a so called expert (seeing that so called experts disagree on all sorts of things, and if two theories are in conflict with one another either one is wrong or they are both wrong, there are necessarily many experts wrong about all kinds of things) saying that the Pima indians of Arizona unquestionably have a genetic disease, yet the Pima or Mexico (as well as the Pima in the past) are normal. Tell me this: lets just say that you have two people, Bob and Jim, who eat somewhat similar diets, but Bob is fat and Jim is nomral weigh, and the difference was because of some kind of genetic defect (involving God knows how many genes and gene products). Who has the defect? Aren't people who eat too much and sit around on their butts supposed to get fat? Doesnt Jim have the true defect, because had he lived in the Ice Age he would have died (Bobs genes are doing the job they were designed to do, the trouble is that the genes that were good 10,000 years ago arent so wonderful to have nowadays). Environmental factors clearly can contibute to and cause disease, but does it also determine how we define disease now? What a disease yesterday is a good thing tomorrow. What made one fit yesterday is a disease today.
