Welcome to Debate Club! Please be aware that this is a space for respectful debate, and that your ideas will be challenged here. Please remember to critique the argument, not the author.
Overweight people are less intelligent than people who are do not have weight problems
Bonny132
Posts: 3,617 Member
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/13/fat-people-are-less-intelligent-than-those-who-are-overweight/?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/13/fat-people-are-less-intelligent-than-those-who-are-not-overweigh/?WTmcid=tmgoff_soc_spf_fb&WT.mc_id=sf30838983
Seriously, now overweight people are less intelligent?
Has anyone found the crap "paper" behind this? I have yet to locate ii. Thank you.
Overweight men and women have less grey and white matter in key areas of the brain, it suggests. They also have greater impulsiveness and "altered reward processing", the study said.
The researchers said that their findings could explain why overweight people make poor diet choices - they do not have the mental capacity to control themselves.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/13/fat-people-are-less-intelligent-than-those-who-are-not-overweigh/?WTmcid=tmgoff_soc_spf_fb&WT.mc_id=sf30838983
Seriously, now overweight people are less intelligent?
Has anyone found the crap "paper" behind this? I have yet to locate ii. Thank you.
Overweight men and women have less grey and white matter in key areas of the brain, it suggests. They also have greater impulsiveness and "altered reward processing", the study said.
The researchers said that their findings could explain why overweight people make poor diet choices - they do not have the mental capacity to control themselves.
0
Replies
-
-
There's a thread over here: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10424711/is-it-indicating-being-obese-lowers-intelligence-or-can-lead-to-obesity#latest
madammags' post links to the study. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnins.2016.00234/full1 -
It's already being discussed here:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10424711/is-it-indicating-being-obese-lowers-intelligence-or-can-lead-to-obesity#latest
1 -
What is intelligence? The way I understand it, it includes the ability to adapt to changes in environment. Our food environment has changed dramatically in a short time. It takes a mental effort to resist temptation and delay gratification. This article is written to sell, not to educate. It pushes our buttons, and we react quite predictably.0
-
Thank you all, I must admit to taking total
Offence when reading this X0 -
I'll go along with poor impulse control and trouble controlling themselves, but actual intelligence? Nah.5
-
So, in industrialized countries like ours - higher educational attainment tends to predict lower BMI. Conversely, obesity tends to predict a higher incidence of cognitive deficits, independent of other medical issues.
I don't think it paints a pretty picture, but I think it might be not completely out of the realm of reasonable to say that uneducated, unintelligent people are more likely to get fat, and also - being fat can make you dull (or maybe even demented).
**************
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23889851
"Although previous systematic reviews considered the relationship between socioeconomic status and obesity, almost 200 peer-reviewed articles have been published since the last review on that topic, and this paper focuses specifically on education, which has different implications. The authors systematically review the peer-reviewed literature from around the world considering the association between educational attainment and obesity. Databases from public health and medicine, education, psychology, economics, and other social sciences were searched, and articles published in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish were included. This paper includes 289 articles that report on 410 populations in 91 countries. The relationship between educational attainment and obesity was modified by both gender and the country's economic development level: an inverse association was more common in studies of higher-income countries and a positive association was more common in lower-income countries, with stronger social patterning among women. Relatively few studies reported on lower-income countries, controlled for a comprehensive set of potential confounding variables and/or attempted to assess causality through the use of quasi-experimental designs. Future research should address these gaps to understand if the relationship between educational attainment and obesity may be causal, thus supporting education policy as a tool for obesity prevention."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230681347_Etiology_and_PathophysiologyObesity_Prevention_A_review_of_the_association_between_obesity_and_cognitive_function_across_the_lifespan_implications_for_novel_approaches_to_prevention_and_treatmento_br_
"Recent research suggests that increased adiposity is associated with poor cogni-tive performance, independently of associated medical conditions. The evidence regarding this relationship is examined in this review article. A relatively consis-tent finding across the lifespan is that obesity is associated with cognitive deficits, especially in executive function, in children, adolescents and adults. However, as illustrated by contradictory studies, the relationship between obesity and cogni-tion is uncertain in the elderly, partly because of inaccuracy of body mass index as a measure of adiposity as body composition changes with aging. This review further discusses whether obesity is a cause or a consequence of these cognitive deficits, acknowledging the possible bidirectional relationship. The possible effects of increased adiposity on the brain are summarized. Our investigations suggest that weight gain results, at least in part, from a neurological predisposition characterized by reduced executive function, and in turn obesity itself has a compounding negative impact on the brain via mechanisms currently attributed to low-grade systemic inflammation, elevated lipids and/or insulin resistance. The possible role of cognitive remediation treatment strategies to prevent and/or treat obesity is discussed."2 -
So @Zipp237 are you including people who has had no food education (but might be very intelligent) who has an addiction or eating disorder, or who's depressed and comfort eats?
Are we saying all of the above are under normal intelligence?
I'm not sure.
We aren't saying anything together.
0 -
I wanted to know what was going on in this other fat=stupid thread, but I am too dumb to understand all the strange squiggles and lines that people use for reading and writing. My cat typed this for me. She's a healthy weight.20
-
So @Zipp237 are you including people who has had no food education (but might be very intelligent) who has an addiction or eating disorder, or who's depressed and comfort eats?
Are we saying all of the above are under normal intelligence?
Zipp237 was trolling hard in another thread; wouldn't take their arguments too seriously.
0 -
That's funny. I'm fat with a Ph.D!! I must be an outlier! Oh, wait. I wouldn't know what an outlier is.... Silly me!12
-
That's funny. I'm fat with a Ph.D!! I must be an outlier! Oh, wait. I wouldn't know what an outlier is.... Silly me!
To be fair though, you are likely also doing something to fix your weight issue (assuming that you have one), which indicates that you have the ability to recognize, diagnose, and fix problems. Keep in mind that most here will be outliers. Also remember that there are millions of obese people not here, many not doing anything to fix their *kitten*, and just going on believing stupid stuff like "big boned", "undiagnosed thyroid problem", or "that guy who complained about my thighs knocking stuff off of shelves was just overreacting".3 -
This is just like single-issue voters. Intelligence is a vastly complex and somewhat hard to define thing, so if that's confusing, let's just narrow it down to a single measure so we don't have to think too much.5
-
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »That's funny. I'm fat with a Ph.D!! I must be an outlier! Oh, wait. I wouldn't know what an outlier is.... Silly me!
To be fair though, you are likely also doing something to fix your weight issue (assuming that you have one), which indicates that you have the ability to recognize, diagnose, and fix problems. Keep in mind that most here will be outliers. Also remember that there are millions of obese people not here, many not doing anything to fix their *kitten*, and just going on believing stupid stuff like "big boned", "undiagnosed thyroid problem", or "that guy who complained about my thighs knocking stuff off of shelves was just overreacting".
Except a at one point she (and i) were people who were/are fat and doing " nothing " as you so politely described it. Did we become more intelligent for making weight loss a priority?
I think this study is a thinly veiled effort to justify bias. We've been seeing them since the advent of eugenics.6 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »That's funny. I'm fat with a Ph.D!! I must be an outlier! Oh, wait. I wouldn't know what an outlier is.... Silly me!
To be fair though, you are likely also doing something to fix your weight issue (assuming that you have one), which indicates that you have the ability to recognize, diagnose, and fix problems. Keep in mind that most here will be outliers. Also remember that there are millions of obese people not here, many not doing anything to fix their *kitten*, and just going on believing stupid stuff like "big boned", "undiagnosed thyroid problem", or "that guy who complained about my thighs knocking stuff off of shelves was just overreacting".
Except a at one point she (and i) were people who were/are fat and doing " nothing " as you so politely described it. Did we become more intelligent for making weight loss a priority?
I think this study is a thinly veiled effort to justify bias. We've been seeing them since the advent of eugenics.
Prioritization is not indicative of ability, nor did I indicate that it was. The difference is that most don't actually appear to learn. They float from fad to fad, scam to scam, hoping that they'll eventually stumble upon the miracle pill that will let them keep eating 4000 kcals per day, while doing nothing, and get to sub-15%.
I mean, let them have at it. They're great for money velocity. That doesn't mean that they aren't gullible as hell, with a distinct lack of critical thinking ability.0 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »That's funny. I'm fat with a Ph.D!! I must be an outlier! Oh, wait. I wouldn't know what an outlier is.... Silly me!
To be fair though, you are likely also doing something to fix your weight issue (assuming that you have one), which indicates that you have the ability to recognize, diagnose, and fix problems. Keep in mind that most here will be outliers. Also remember that there are millions of obese people not here, many not doing anything to fix their *kitten*, and just going on believing stupid stuff like "big boned", "undiagnosed thyroid problem", or "that guy who complained about my thighs knocking stuff off of shelves was just overreacting".
Except a at one point she (and i) were people who were/are fat and doing " nothing " as you so politely described it. Did we become more intelligent for making weight loss a priority?
I think this study is a thinly veiled effort to justify bias. We've been seeing them since the advent of eugenics.
Prioritization is not indicative of ability, nor did I indicate that it was. The difference is that most don't actually appear to learn. They float from fad to fad, scam to scam, hoping that they'll eventually stumble upon the miracle pill that will let them keep eating 4000 kcals per day, while doing nothing, and get to sub-15%.
I mean, let them have at it. They're great for money velocity. That doesn't mean that they aren't gullible as hell, with a distinct lack of critical thinking ability.
Did I read what you wrote accurately? All overweight people are "gullible as hell with a distinct lack of critical thinking ability."?
1 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »That's funny. I'm fat with a Ph.D!! I must be an outlier! Oh, wait. I wouldn't know what an outlier is.... Silly me!
To be fair though, you are likely also doing something to fix your weight issue (assuming that you have one), which indicates that you have the ability to recognize, diagnose, and fix problems. Keep in mind that most here will be outliers. Also remember that there are millions of obese people not here, many not doing anything to fix their *kitten*, and just going on believing stupid stuff like "big boned", "undiagnosed thyroid problem", or "that guy who complained about my thighs knocking stuff off of shelves was just overreacting".
Except a at one point she (and i) were people who were/are fat and doing " nothing " as you so politely described it. Did we become more intelligent for making weight loss a priority?
I think this study is a thinly veiled effort to justify bias. We've been seeing them since the advent of eugenics.
Prioritization is not indicative of ability, nor did I indicate that it was. The difference is that most don't actually appear to learn. They float from fad to fad, scam to scam, hoping that they'll eventually stumble upon the miracle pill that will let them keep eating 4000 kcals per day, while doing nothing, and get to sub-15%.
I mean, let them have at it. They're great for money velocity. That doesn't mean that they aren't gullible as hell, with a distinct lack of critical thinking ability.
Did I read what you wrote accurately? All overweight people are "gullible as hell with a distinct lack of critical thinking ability."?
You seem to have missed some key words in what I wrote. "All" was also not among them.1 -
This content has been removed.
-
"Gallowmere1984 wrote: »You seem to have missed some key words in what I wrote. "All" was also not among them.
You said "most". Which is really, frankly, not a whole lot better.
1 -
"Gallowmere1984 wrote: »You seem to have missed some key words in what I wrote. "All" was also not among them.
You said "most". Which is really, frankly, not a whole lot better.
"Most" could be anywhere from 50.(whatever)% to 99.(whatever)%, so yeah, it leaves a whole lot of room on the number scale.
Also, I will admit, it MAY BE getting better.
In 2012, the diet pill industry was pulling down about $20B/yr in the US alone, and if you factor in stuff like Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc., it went up to around $60B/yr. For the last two years though, all of these have seen reduced profits, dwindling participation, etc. I've seen it speculated that the proliferation of smartphone apps, similar to (and including) the one used by MFP, has a lot to do with it.
What still concerns me though, is the fact that this has been going on for two years running (almost three now), yet we don't appear to be seeing any appreciable decline in the obesity rates. So yeah, you can see why I still continue to believe that said apps are just the new thing that most of the obese have jumped onto, without actually bothering to learn how any of this stuff (CICO, general nutrition, etc.) actually works.0 -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/13/fat-people-are-less-intelligent-than-those-who-are-overweight/?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/13/fat-people-are-less-intelligent-than-those-who-are-not-overweigh/?WTmcid=tmgoff_soc_spf_fb&WT.mc_id=sf30838983
Seriously, now overweight people are less intelligent?
Has anyone found the crap "paper" behind this? I have yet to locate ii. Thank you.
Overweight men and women have less grey and white matter in key areas of the brain, it suggests. They also have greater impulsiveness and "altered reward processing", the study said.
The researchers said that their findings could explain why overweight people make poor diet choices - they do not have the mental capacity to control themselves.
Have read a few studies on this. There are two factors at play. One, people of lower intelligence are more likely to be fat in the first place, which means that in any epidemiological research this connection will appear, but it does not indicate that being fat lowers your intelligence, but rather that being unintelligent makes you less able to control your diet and weight.
Second, there is some indication that the hormonal disruptions associated with obesity DO cause neurological degeneration (e.g. the vast majority of Alzheimer's sufferers are diabetic or prediabetic, in fact the medical community is discussing reclassifying Alzheimer's as "type 3 diabetes"), which will over time lead to reduced intelligence.
This suggests bidirectional causality due to multiple factors, but I would presume that the former (people of low intelligence are more likely to be fat) is more of a factor than the latter, as being mildly overweight is unlikely to cause a level of e.g. insulin resistance sufficient to substantially lower intelligence. However, as the proportion of the population that is significantly overweight/obese increases, then that may change.
Just my 2c.3 -
Wut?1
-
-
Looking at brain structures as a predictor for "intelligence" is problematic for several reasons:
* It's assuming that the structural changes noted are related to "intelligence"
* It's assuming causality rather than correlation in the relationship
* It seems to fail to take education and cultural issues into consideration
* There are many kinds of "intelligence" beside that measured by IQ tests
It used to be thought that birds were not very intelligent because of the low brain to body mass ratio. We now know that birds' brains are organized differently than mammalian brains, and corvids and parrots are in the dog or even chimpanzee level of intelligence. With regard to humans, we know that brains can reorganize themselves so it's very dangerous extrapolating from brain size and structure; see:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oukoe-uk-brain-tiny-idUKN19305100200707203 -
Gah! So many big wurdz3
-
"Gallowmere1984 wrote: »You seem to have missed some key words in what I wrote. "All" was also not among them.
You said "most". Which is really, frankly, not a whole lot better.
Based on scientific evidence such as comment sections under diet related articles on the internet and conversations overheard at the office on a daily basis, I think "most" is probably pretty accurate.0 -
"Gallowmere1984 wrote: »You seem to have missed some key words in what I wrote. "All" was also not among them.
You said "most". Which is really, frankly, not a whole lot better.
The answer to your question about whether you read it correctly was NO, you didn't,
0 -
"Gallowmere1984 wrote: »You seem to have missed some key words in what I wrote. "All" was also not among them.
You said "most". Which is really, frankly, not a whole lot better.
The answer to your question about whether you read it correctly was NO, you didn't,
I didn't MISQUOTE. I put the quotations after. Now we're bickering about my phrasing because I called out what is CLEAR fat bias and a person's justification to castigate overweight and obese individuals as LESS VALUABLE HUMAN BEINGS.
Cut it out already.
5 -
"Gallowmere1984 wrote: »You seem to have missed some key words in what I wrote. "All" was also not among them.
You said "most". Which is really, frankly, not a whole lot better.
The answer to your question about whether you read it correctly was NO, you didn't,
I didn't MISQUOTE. I put the quotations after. Now we're bickering about my phrasing because I called out what is CLEAR fat bias and a person's justification to castigate overweight and obese individuals as LESS VALUABLE HUMAN BEINGS.
Cut it out already.
1
This discussion has been closed.
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 393.6K Introduce Yourself
- 43.8K Getting Started
- 260.3K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.9K Food and Nutrition
- 47.5K Recipes
- 232.6K Fitness and Exercise
- 431 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.6K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 153K Motivation and Support
- 8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.8K MyFitnessPal Information
- 24 News and Announcements
- 1.1K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.6K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions