Fat Epidemic?
I had planned to discuss the popularity of sitting in America, but I was distracted by this, since it's related to the obesity epidemic hype.
Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and the discoverer of the gene for leptin, says we Americans are not getting uniformly fatter. This is a bit of semantic fanciness, IMHO, but it's a good demonstration of how the statistics CAN be viewed in a far less alarmist fashion. He gives this example:
"Imagine the average I.Q. was 100 and that 5 percent of the population had an I.Q. of 140 or greater and were considered to be geniuses. Now let's say that education improves and the average I.Q. increases to 107 and 10 percent of the population has an I.Q. of above 140.
"You could present the data in two ways," he said. "You could say that the average I.Q. is up seven points or you could say that because of improved education the number of geniuses has doubled."
The statistic we all hear regularly is that since 1991, the number of obese Americans has jumped more than 30%. The less alarmist way to say this is:
"In 1991, 23 percent of Americans fell into the obese category; now 31 percent do, a more than 30 percent increase. But the average weight of the population has increased by just 7 to 10 pounds since 1991."
It certainly seems like people are fatter. Friedman claims that the while the obese have grown to morbidly obese, the thin are still thin. In other words, the weight has been disproportionately gained by those who were already fat. I suspect that people who merely read as chubby have crossed the line and become "fat". The BMI numbers bear this out, of course, but they are a bit jiggered too.
It's something that Dr. Friedman says later in this article that's truly alarming.
Over the years, Dr. Friedman says, he has watched the scientific data accumulate to show that body weight, in animals and humans, is not under conscious control. Body weight, he says, is genetically determined, as tightly regulated as height. Genes control not only how much you eat but also the metabolic rate at which you burn food. When it comes to eating, free will is an illusion.
"People can exert a level of control over their weight within a 10-, perhaps a 15-pound range," Dr. Friedman said. But expecting an obese person to decide to simply eat less and exercise more to get below the obesity range, below the overweight range? It virtually never happens, he said. Any weight that is lost almost invariably comes right back.
I'm not sure what to make of this. It would seem to say that weightloss is a hopeless pursuit. In 2000, I weighed 220 lbs. Nine months later, I weighed 180 lbs., and I now weigh about 163 lbs (this gives me a BMI of 25, BTW).
Here's what I look like at present:
I know it's not a full body shot, but you can tell from my face that I'm not carrying a great deal of excess weight. I'm not skinny, but neither am I fat. I am well endowed in the ass-and-tits categories, to be perfectly straight about it. Lucky for me, I have what I'm told is a pleasing waist-to-hip ratio.
I've kept off the weight for four years now, and I can maintain the 180 without much difficulty at all, but keeping my weight at 163 isn't easy and trying to lose weight from this point is very hard indeed.
So, what was that 220 lbs. weight all about (I have some opinions about that, which I'll likely get to later this month)? Why did I gain that, if it's all determined by genetics, and if I have no free will in this matter, why have I been able to keep the weight off or even lose it in the first place? This article asks more questions than it answers!
Thanks to Ed for the pointer to the article referenced.
Posted by nicole at June 09, 2004 03:29 PM