To all of you people calling out obese students I must ask:
Do you continue to drink/smoke/have too much caffine/use illegal drugs?
If so, why after seeing all of these lectures about how bad it is for you. soeagerun2or, do you do any of these things? I sure do hope not, because there is even less of an excuse a fine person of moral fiber and physical prowless should, those of us overweight dont have the choice to give up food or can be blamed for eating food from the begining. Drinking, smoking, and using other drugs is something your body doesnt ever need and is completly an invention of man to get away from reality. Ill take a chance for type II diabetes and high blood pressure over liver failure, alzheimers (alcohol,) lung/throat cancer (tobacco,) and major loss of brain cells (all of the above.)
People in glass houses...
Don't forget Heart disease, cancer, arthritis, OSA, lung disease and I'm sure there's a host more attributed to obesity.
I do agree with you though, about other bad habits medical students have. I know lots of people who drink tons of caffeine, smoke, have issues with alcohol, take amphetamines, and I'm sure there's more. Plenty of med student fit into any of the above categories, so yes, the obese people shouln'd be called out simply because their problem can be seen easily to the world.
I, personally don't fit in any of the above categories, (although I did drink quite a bit in my first year and some of my second year of medical school), but that phase is over. I'd rather not deal with the hangovers anymore, because the few that I did have sucked ass.
So anyhow, while I do believe that there's a genetic component to obesity, in most cases, obesity/overweight is just plain due to bad eating habits and laziness. I mean look at countries in Europe where people walk everywhere and you can count how many obese people there are around you as opposed to the US, where people get in a car to drive two blocks. Seriously, the bottom line is the majority of Americans are lazy, and life in America is way too convenient. Instead of parents coming home from a long day's work and cooking for their kids, they go and buy fast food, because they are "too tired" and kids think that eating junk food is ok, because their parents feed them junk. So if you grow up your whole life eating unhealthy food, I'm sure it would be hard as an adult to break 20+ years of bad eating habits and now start eating healthy nutritious food. A lot of these people don't know how to cook these healthy meals.
People at my school always tell me how healthy I eat because I pack my lunch 3-4 times a week, cook 2-3 times a week and eat plenty of veggies and fruits. But that's how I grew up eating, so it's easy for me to stay away from candy, pastries and junk. But I'm sure if I started eating like some of my classmates, I might put on a few pounds. Maybe not much because my family consists of thin people, but I'm sure I could, because I weighed 5 pounds more in first year due to my partying and alcohol intake.
Anyway, I guess we could go on and on about why people are fat, but bottom line is, a vast majority of them are fat because they consume way more calories than they burn. That's all there is to it.