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NYT article about obesity stating it's genetic, not lack of willpower

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  • crzycatlady1
    crzycatlady1 Posts: 1,930 Member
    edited December 2016
    Seajolly wrote: »
    crzycatlady1 wrote: »

    So how do you explain all the people who eat GMO foods and aren't overweight or obese, and are in good health?

    Also, can you post links to the studies you're referring to so we can take a look at them thanks!

    I don't believe it affects everyone, as I do believe genetics are involved as well. Here are some articles on the studies if you want to read up on it:

    prevention.com/food/healthy-eating-tips/gmo-foods-linked-weight-gain

    naturalsociety.com/how-gmo-foods-feed-junk-food-profits-not-the-world/

    sciencenordic.com/growing-fatter-gm-diet

    https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3133759/

    I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this idea-my family tree is full of overweight /obese/disease, especially type 2 diabetes, but I'm sitting at a bmi of around 21, no longer a prediabetic, am in excellent health and I eat GMO foods daily. So I just can't understand the idea of GMOs causing someone to gain weight, as long as they're eating at the correct calorie intake to maintain a healthy weight. Thanks for the links, I'll take a look at them :)
  • Seajolly
    Seajolly Posts: 1,435 Member
    crzycatlady1 wrote: »

    I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this idea-my family tree is full of overweight /obese/disease, especially type 2 diabetes, but I'm sitting at a bmi of around 21, no longer a prediabetic, am in excellent health and I eat GMO foods daily. So I just can't understand the idea of GMOs causing someone to gain weight, as long as they're eating at the correct calorie intake to maintain a healthy weight. Thanks for the links, I'll take a look at them :)

    It's something I believe in, but see what you think for yourself. :) I don't believe that GMO's cause ALL cases of obesity, but that it is a contributing factor in many cases.
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,159 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    GaleHawkins wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    laura2137 wrote: »
    During war, obese people didn't exist. it all the convenient prepackaged and cheap food ready available, we eat too much and the wrong food too....and we don't move walk eccetera......in the 50 they were all slim.....so what happen ? Do the genetic changed ? I don't think so.......

    The prevalence of food and variety of food choices as well as the increasingly sedentary lifestyles of individuals has been discussed in this thread as likely being a large contributor to obesity. What are the "wrong foods" you refer to?

    Personally in my case "wrong foods" are Processed Carbs. With effort I can gain weight eating No processed foods but my total carbs have to be > 50 grams daily.

    So you believe that in many or most traditional cultures, eating traditional foods (or how we did in the US in the 1940s or 1950s) you would have been obese? Even if you had to be active in your daily life, etc.

    Hmm.

    Then you would have been an outlier and apparently the argument that we wouldn't have been fat in the '40s and '50s isn't accurate.

    I really have no beliefs about food and histories.

    All that I know factually in a medical sense at this point in my life is what I posted above based on lab results plus live results.
  • obiwankendrobi
    obiwankendrobi Posts: 6 Member
    I think some people are more genetically predisposed, but that doesn't mean that they can never lose weight ever. Just means they have to work a little harder than the rest is all. Kind of like me, for instance. Sub-clinical hypothyroidism (basically like a pre-cursor), I can obviously lose weight, but I work at it a lot more than others.
  • Seajolly
    Seajolly Posts: 1,435 Member
    chocolate_owl wrote: »
    [

    Here are all the countries that have banned cultivation AND importing of GMO products, so they're GMO-free:

    Algeria - 49.9% overweight or obese
    Bhutan - 35.3% overweight or obese
    Kyrgyzstan - 50.8% overweight or obese
    Madagascar - 11.1% overweight or obese
    Peru - 56.2% overweight or obese
    Russia - 57.1% overweight or obese
    Venezuela - 53.7% overweight or obese

    This data is from a review published in 2015: http://publichealthintelligence.org/content/prevalence-overweight-and-obesity-worldwide
    Another review about European countries was published in 2014 that had estimates for Kyrgyzstan and Russia even higher.

    IDK about you, but seems to me that a lot of those GMO-free countries have obesity problems. Note that Algeria has had GMOs banned in entirety since 2000 - in 2000, the obesity rate in Algeria was 43.8%. Since the banning of GMOs, Algeria's obesity levels have continued to increase.

    That's not all the countries that have banned GMOs to date. Some other countries that have banned most GMOs are: Scotland, Wales, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Switzerland (there are more, but I want to focus on these). These countries all range from 15-25% obese. The ones you listed are all impoverished countries so of course they aren't going to be the model of health, despite not producing GMO foods.

    There's way more to obesity than GMOs, and I never claimed that was the only cause. I think it's a contributing factor for many people, again not all people. Genetics play into this too. But it's also about the lifestyle of the people. For example, Kyrgyzstan is 50.8% overweight but they also have less access to fresh fruit and vegetables. Algeria is the largest consumer of bread in the world, consuming 50-70 million loaves of bread PER DAY. They also have less access to fresh fruit and vegetables. So even though GMOs are banned there, their lifestyles still contribute to their obesity. Alcohol, salts, and sugars are common in foods in those places. That's why we should look to countries such as Norway, Denmark, and France since they live healthier lives overall. They eat fresh food, lots of produce, seafood, and not a lot of processed foods or things with preservatives.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited December 2016
    To pick just one, Scotland's overweight or obese number is about 65%. It also banned GMOs in 2015. Maybe comparing the numbers in Scotland vs. some other country going forward from 2015 would be informative, but GMOs certainly can't be relevant to current numbers (which obviously aren't great).

    US numbers, btw, from another chart is 22nd in the world in most overweight and obese and a total of 67.3% overweight/obese (interestingly, in the US according to this chart men to worse than women). UK numbers (it doesn't seem to have Scotland on its own) are 32nd and 63.4%. Not a huge difference (men do worse in the UK too).

    US does have more obese than the UK (including Scotland -- I don't see the numbers for it alone, but I expect it's not wildly different), but that difference was created BEFORE the change in the law about GMOs some places, and the likelihood is that it will decrease going forward, as it is likely to keep increasing to a point in other countries whereas it may have (based on some recent numbers) hit a cap in the US -- there may be genetic limits on how much of the population is likely to become obese, despite environment. Also, if Scotland and Wales banned it and England does not (as this seems to indicate is likely: http://www.scotsman.com/future-scotland/tech/was-the-scottish-government-right-to-ban-gm-crops-1-3902781), then I suppose comparing the two going forward would be interesting or, well, could be if it meant that people in Scotland consumed significantly less GMO crops, which I suspect would not be the case anyway, as it's about growing them, not being able to buy products with them in it, I think, and you'd assume English products in particular would be available.

    But I'm no expert on the UK, so someone can jump in.

    Anyway, I see no evidence indicating that GMOs have a thing to do with it. Seems like an argument intended to deny personal responsibility (the GMOs made us fat). If you want to look at differences, you can also see differences between US states.

    Oh, and I've never eaten lots of pre-packaged stuff -- "processed" is the wrong word, as many of those countries are big on dairy and of course dairy is "processed" as is anything smoked, pickled, etc. -- and yet I got fat. How? I ate too much.

    Interestingly, I checked the WF list of common GMO products since I wondered if I was wrong to think I didn't consume much that was likely GMO, and found that non organic zucchini and summer squash were the main things I'm likely to have consumed (I get corn only locally in season and the farms I usually buy from are organic, even though I don't personally care about organics, and I probably get some GMO soy, but really didn't before losing weight as all the stuff that might contain it (maybe protein bars which I eat occasionally) are things I started eating then). Hmm.
  • Gamliela
    Gamliela Posts: 2,468 Member
    edited December 2016
    I live in France. Of the 6 countries I have lived in for significant years at a time, France is at the top of my list for amazement at the food they eat and no consequent prevelant obesity. The others are US, Canada, Portugal, Italy and Ireland. None of those countries eat the type of foods we eat here all the time. Its an interesting question, what causes obesity? My answer is that it happens from regularly eating too much.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    The whole concept doesn't make sense to me. GMO is not an ingredient that you can pinpoint. Not all genetic modifications modify the same genes or use the same genetic engineering method. You can't pool them all under one big umbrella saying they cause weight gain without specifying the exact GMO crop and the exact modification that would potentially cause the correlation, plus a potential theory about the mechanism or how that would work (assuming the study has merit, which apparently it doesn't since it was pulled). That's like saying "a study found that a certain medication is associated with increased appetite" means "all medications cause obesity, and we started gaining weight when regulated pharmaceuticals were introduced".

    Yeah, great points.
  • _Justinian_
    _Justinian_ Posts: 232 Member
    The study was conducted by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. You do know how these people make their money, right? :)
  • domesticlydiva
    domesticlydiva Posts: 19 Member
    Perhaps a family history of being overweight is largely due to bad eating habits that have been passed on from one generation to another as opposed to being "genetically" predisposed. Not saying that genes don't play a role, but the amount of obese & morbidly obese people today is likely the result of countless advertisements showing food, food, food....innumerable fast food outlets, high calorie, supersized portions & our preoccupation with food, food, food is a societal ill....The bottom line: someone, somewhere is raking in a gazillion bucks at the expense of making many people very unhealthy. But as a previous commenter said, no one can stuff the food down our gullet except ourselves. SO, we may not have any control over any of the other stuff, but we can take control of what we put in our mouth & whether we move our body enough to burn off some of what we put in our mouth. Just sayin'
  • Samarisa
    Samarisa Posts: 22 Member
    I know a few people who eat whatever they want, whenever they want, and exercise as often or as rarely as they want, and they're lean and healthy as far as I can tell. I assume the differences are mostly genetic. Whether DNA or epigenetic or a combination of both.

    They're rare as unicorns these days, so I don't resent them too much.
  • SingRunTing
    SingRunTing Posts: 2,604 Member
    This is your perfect "nature vs nurture" type of situation. I'm voting for nurture.

    Sure, there might be a small genetic component. But it would be like 1% of the influence. Your habits, which are taught at a very young age by your family, are the other 99%. Focus on what you can control.
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    Samarisa wrote: »
    I know a few people who eat whatever they want, whenever they want, and exercise as often or as rarely as they want, and they're lean and healthy as far as I can tell. I assume the differences are mostly genetic. Whether DNA or epigenetic or a combination of both.

    They're rare as unicorns these days, so I don't resent them too much.

    I am like this too! Except I used to be a BMI of 28.
    I can eat what I want when I want because "what I want" is less now than it used to be.
  • crzycatlady1
    crzycatlady1 Posts: 1,930 Member
    edited December 2016
    Samarisa wrote: »
    I know a few people who eat whatever they want, whenever they want, and exercise as often or as rarely as they want, and they're lean and healthy as far as I can tell. I assume the differences are mostly genetic. Whether DNA or epigenetic or a combination of both.

    They're rare as unicorns these days, so I don't resent them too much.

    Unless you're with these people 24 hours a day, then you don't know how many calories they're actually consuming. And portion sizes can be misleading to look at as well. I've had people make comments about how much I'm eating when we're at a gathering or out at a restaurant-what they don't see is how few calories I ate the rest of the day (or day before/day after etc).
  • Samarisa
    Samarisa Posts: 22 Member
    My point isn't that they're defying the laws of physics. They just don't think about what they put in their mouths vs what they burn off. Ever.

    Probably they do pig out sometimes and then skip meals or eat light. But they don't have to think about it. They don't struggle with hunger. They just do it. Of course many of those people were young when I knew them and we've lost touch. Things might have changed in later years!
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    Samarisa wrote: »
    My point isn't that they're defying the laws of physics. They just don't think about what they put in their mouths vs what they burn off. Ever.

    Probably they do pig out sometimes and then skip meals or eat light. But they don't have to think about it. They don't struggle with hunger. They just do it. Of course many of those people were young when I knew them and we've lost touch. Things might have changed in later years!

    This was addressed in this thread already I believe, but has been discussed in countless others. Unless you are with them 24 hours a day, logging their food for them and measuring their calorie burns, these magical people who can eat and eat and eat and not gain weight just don't exist. Usually it is that you see one meal they eat in a day or week, and assume they eat like that for every single meal, or you don't know that they walk 20k steps every day so that they are burning higher calories than it would appear.

    Somewhere there's a video clip someone might be able to dig up and post about two women, one of whom insisted her friend was one of those people, but it was simply not the case when the meals and calories were accurately tracked.
  • Samarisa
    Samarisa Posts: 22 Member
    edited December 2016
    I assumed nothing. Unless of course they were all lying and secretly counting calories and working out to stay lean and then pretending to do so effortlessly.

    I have seen that video, though. It's good.

    My point is, they ate (or claimed to eat) to satiety, to use a technical term, and did not force exercise in order to burn off the excess.
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    Samarisa wrote: »
    My point isn't that they're defying the laws of physics. They just don't think about what they put in their mouths vs what they burn off. Ever.

    Probably they do pig out sometimes and then skip meals or eat light. But they don't have to think about it. They don't struggle with hunger. They just do it. Of course many of those people were young when I knew them and we've lost touch. Things might have changed in later years!

    Time changes everything! I was rail thin when I was a teen then I was obese for several years as an adult before I decided to take control again. We develop bad habits when we are young and are more active but when we have careers and kids it catches up.
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