Is WEIGHT GAIN caused by genetics or not? **For my Paper**

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  • _KitKat_
    _KitKat_ Posts: 1,066 Member
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    I found this

    "Each inherited metabolic disorder is quite rare in the general population. Considered all together, inherited metabolic disorders may affect about 1 in 1,000 to 2,500 newborns. In certain ethnic populations, such as Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of central and eastern European ancestry), the rate of inherited metabolic disorders is higher."

    So it is rare but not as rare as a blood clotting disorder, This does show that when people do say they have a disorder, they may in fact have one but over all it is rare. Unfortunately any rare condition is normally not understood and has little funding.
  • MrsRatfire
    MrsRatfire Posts: 102
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    You are not correct. Please take the time to read my posts. thank you.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,404 MFP Moderator
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    You are correct. But I will tell you, there are so many variations and we are all affected at different ages- and of course it progresses. Many people have one and at this time do not know it. Then they drop dead of a heart attack or something else, and no one is none the wiser. I do agree, that the unbelievable waive of obesity around the world is not genetic. It is hard to even imagine as I see it all over, I lived in a time when obesity was not the norm. I just can hardly believe how many fat young people and teenagers there are. No way they all have diseases. But- there are many of us out there. Thank you for your understanding.

    But weight isn't a factor of genetics. Your family history can dictate if your will have naturally high cholesterol, if your are prone to certain disease (cancers, thyroid, pcos, etc..) but it doesn't mean you will automatically be obese. You can control your weight through the correct medicine (which may take time to get), diet and exercise. You can have very obese parents and still be skinny if you change your habits. I know for a fact it's not as easy to lose as compared to someone with no health issues, but its possible for everyone to lose weight.
  • MrsRatfire
    MrsRatfire Posts: 102
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    You are incorrect. Please read my posts. Thank you.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,404 MFP Moderator
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    You are not correct. Please take the time to read my posts. thank you.

    Why do you keep repeating this.. it's apparent we have read your post.
  • _KitKat_
    _KitKat_ Posts: 1,066 Member
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    You are not correct. Please take the time to read my posts. thank you.

    I read each of your posts, May I ask where I was in error, if you were speaking to me.

    I did check both disorders against the NORD database, I found nothing there. (NORD is the database of rare diseases)
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,404 MFP Moderator
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    You are incorrect. Please read my posts. Thank you.

    Than post some research to justify your claim. Suggesting we are wrong will not help us as community to become smarter or the OP to be able to answer her paper.
  • rosebette
    rosebette Posts: 1,659 Member
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    I believe that it can be genetic. My husband comes from a family that is heavy with a tendency toward diabetes, which he has now. My daughter is a larger build and tends to be a bit over her BMI, as does one of my sons. While my husband has been a big eater, I've seen the way other guys eat, and they aren't that heavy. In fact, at home, he eats exactly what I eat, so he should be losing tons, but he doesn't.

    My own family consists of small people. I am the "fattest" person in my family of origin, and the heaviest I've been is around 140-145 at a height of 5'2". I'm currently around 120 and still heavier than my mother and my sister. My father, God rest his soul, used to eat dessert every night and mountains of potatoes. He lived to be 86 and never weighed more than 150. My mom still wears a size 6 and always has cookies and ice cream in her house. We all have high cholesterol, though, but we also live forever, despite it.

    There's also an ethnic/racial component to weight and body type. My husband is Italian, and my family is French-Canadian. However, I teach ESL to a wide range of ethnicities, and I would say Latinos tend to be heavier, and Asians tend to be thinner, regardless of what they eat. If there wasn't a "genetic" component, what would account for these differences? You might want to look this up in some scholarly sources about this issue to get a more precise answer.
  • _KitKat_
    _KitKat_ Posts: 1,066 Member
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    I believe that it can be genetic. My husband comes from a family that is heavy with a tendency toward diabetes, which he has now. My daughter is a larger build and tends to be a bit over her BMI, as does one of my sons. While my husband has been a big eater, I've seen the way other guys eat, and they aren't that heavy. In fact, at home, he eats exactly what I eat, so he should be losing tons, but he doesn't.

    My own family consists of small people. I am the "fattest" person in my family of origin, and the heaviest I've been is around 140-145 at a height of 5'2". I'm currently around 120 and still heavier than my mother and my sister. My father, God rest his soul, used to eat dessert every night and mountains of potatoes. He lived to be 86 and never weighed more than 150. My mom still wears a size 6 and always has cookies and ice cream in her house. We all have high cholesterol, though, but we also live forever, despite it.

    There's also an ethnic/racial component to weight and body type. My husband is Italian, and my family is French-Canadian. However, I teach ESL to a wide range of ethnicities, and I would say Latinos tend to be heavier, and Asians tend to be thinner, regardless of what they eat. If there wasn't a "genetic" component, what would account for these differences? You might want to look this up in some scholarly sources about this issue to get a more precise answer.

    Differences in weight regarding ethnicity has more to do with culture and diet than genetics. The ethnicity's ethnic foods would be the main determining factor.

    As for having junk in the house it is more about frequency and portion. My family always has these things, the difference between my self at a healthy (never worried about it weight ) and now is how often I began to snack and the portion size. The other members of my family are all have a healthy low bmi.
  • MrsRatfire
    MrsRatfire Posts: 102
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    The electrolyte issue is huge for these disorders. I was once ordered back to the hospital from a routine blood test as my sodium was so low, they said I was going to have a heart attack. I love salt, but it does not metabolize well enough in me. Hence, I MUST eat sodium. Your wife's disease does sound genetic to me, but I am not familiar with it. In contract, all of us in both disease groups much eat low fat, higher carb. Exercise is very difficult. When I was young, I could. And I did, for grueling hours a day trying to keep my weight off. Now at age 54, I go into spasms - which is running out of fuel- without exercise. When I say spasms- I have what I consider a normal level, for me. What I try to avoid is ones that are like a woman screaming in labor. I am going to try marching in place at at least 120 steps per minute and see if I can add ANY exercise at all. I am all about avoiding crisis, I do house work in bits and pieces. I would love to have my energy back- I do all kins of things and take all kinds of things to improve it. Again, I will not win, but I can make it better!

    this is how I am going to calculate MARCHING IN PLACE:

    Timing your walking while on your virtual treadmill, along with performing some simple math, will tell you how many calories you are burning. For each half-hour you march in place at a normal brisk pace of 120 steps per minute (about 3.5 miles per hour), you will burn an amount of calories that equals your weight in pounds.

    In other words, if you weigh 150 pounds, marching in place on the virtual treadmill will burn 150 calories each half-hour, or 300 calories each hour.

    To find out how many calories you are burning per minute, simply divide 150 calories per half-hour by 30 minutes, or divide 300 calories per hour by 60 minutes, which, in this case, equals 5 calories per minute.
  • kathleennf
    kathleennf Posts: 606 Member
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    MrsRatfire- I read your post :)

    Here is a good reference: http://www.libraryindex.com/pages/2712/Weight-Physical-Health-GENETICS-BODY-WEIGHT-OBESITY.html

    Bottom lines:
    1> Genetics plays a role.
    2> There are some (relatively small number of) people with serious metabolic disorders.
    3> #1 and #2 are beyond our control. We have to focus on what we can do. The overwhelming, vast majority of the population can (and should) maintain their weight within the normal range by their chosen combination of diet and exercise.

    Message me if you want more info. I have done some research on this too.
  • MattyFTM
    MattyFTM Posts: 68 Member
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    Genetics certainly plays a role in your metabolism. Everyone burns off calories at different rates, and that is ultimately a result of your genes. But the vast majority of people, myself included, are obese because they eat too much. Except in cases where people have serious medical conditions that impact their metabolism, you cannot deflect blame for your weight onto your metabolism. It's the amount of food that you eat.
  • MrsRatfire
    MrsRatfire Posts: 102
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    I replied to individuals to read my post, as many people do not follow and entire thread but do look back at there own post to see if anyone replied to it. I thought I was replying to the individual comments to get their attention. Does it just post to the bottom on one gigantic thread, then have them deleted. This issue is important to me, obviously. I have been judged my entire life by these attitudes and bought into them myself. Your a moderator- delta anything you can order to do so. It does not bother me if you do. But please stop posting your discontent with me or a post I made. I am a human being and subject to error. Instead of criticizing me, I think it would make more sense to correct me and order the thread to be fixed.
  • jwdieter
    jwdieter Posts: 2,582 Member
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    Genetics controls everything. Going to war against genetics in a paper is pretty pointless.

    Normal systems provide normal results for input/output. Those normal results are directly controlled by genetics. Abnormal results are as well.
  • msf74
    msf74 Posts: 3,498 Member
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    Genetics may give a person a predisposition or increased likelihood of weight (or specifically fat) gain but that does not mean the gain is inevitable.

    Heredity is not destiny as the saying goes...
  • _KitKat_
    _KitKat_ Posts: 1,066 Member
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    I replied to individuals to read my post, as many people do not follow and entire thread but do look back at there own post to see if anyone replied to it. I thought I was replying to the individual comments to get their attention. Does it just post to the bottom on one gigantic thread, then have them deleted. This issue is important to me, obviously. I have been judged my entire life by these attitudes and bought into them myself. Your a moderator- delta anything you can order to do so. It does not bother me if you do. But please stop posting your discontent with me or a post I made. I am a human being and subject to error. Instead of criticizing me, I think it would make more sense to correct me and order the thread to be fixed.

    I am honestly not trying to be rude, I think you are reading insult where there was not any. People do have these severe disorders, nobody after your post discounted that fact. The other fact though is most disorders are able to be managed, not saying it is easy but it is possible. The other fact is the majority (not you) of people that place blame of their weight on an unnamed "metabolic disorder" are in fact just having a hard time facing the truth that they made themselves fat. I read up some on FOD, God help the individual and/or parent of a newborn diagnosed with that disorder. I did see patients can not have periods of fasting and suffer from hypoglycemia. It is not a condition I would wish on an enemy.
  • MrsRatfire
    MrsRatfire Posts: 102
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    KPOST-- no no no. Your posts are fine. I did not understand that a thread just keeps flowing to the bottom, and the post in person person is not where the reply lands. I was wrong. What i criticized was the person who was exasperated with me and asked why I was posting as it was being read.

    I do not mean this at all about the entire thread. I thought if I hit reply under you post, you we're notified or something that I replied to you. The whole thread did not criticize me, and my understanding of posting was not correct.

    there was another post from the person with the yellow bag in the picture asking for references to scientific journals- as well as what I thought, was not the way to tell me I did not understand posting in this thread. Kindly post a second request, any one, that wants links to the specific diseases I have mentioned. As there are thousands of them, this is an overwhelming topic. I apologize K Post- I thought your posts were very good.

    Please understand, I have been judged, misdiagnosed, told off and everything in between my whole life. I myself hated myself for not being able to stay slim. Even though, I had fought my way down to 155 at 5, 9", I was still told I was fat. All of the time. I was a heavy, picked on child, and the comments from people, have never stopped. In the 1960's and 1970's, the world was very harsh to anyone with weight. Especially physicians.

    I was wrong about how the thread worked. I apologize.
  • mike_ny
    mike_ny Posts: 351 Member
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    Genetics affects your body type, metabolism, and how well you may absorb some nutrients, but weight gain is still from consuming more calories than you burn above your individual TDEE.

    There are plenty of people on this site who were fat kids from fat families and carried that weight for any years, yet still managed to lose it and keep it off by cutting calories, eating a better diet, and exercising. If it was all due to genetics, those success stories would not be possible.
  • MrsRatfire
    MrsRatfire Posts: 102
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    K Post-I actually thank you for looking up FOD. No one usually does- I do not blame them. This is my issue not theirs. The glycogen storage issue is prone to weight gain too. there are thousands of these things. May be in all of this, someone that has a problem will eventually, due to this thread, understand to look elsewhere for the answer. If could save their life. thank you again for your kindness.
  • MrsRatfire
    MrsRatfire Posts: 102
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    mike-ny Yes, of course that is true. But it is not true for many disorders. It is just is not true that some genetic disorders cause weight. However, the majority of people do not fall into there categories. No matter how many times I would answer this, there will always be people that are ingrained with their opinion and say these disorders do not exist. But they do.Here are two basic sites on the glycogen Storage Diseases. And this is just the one disease- there are thousands.


    http://www.patient.co.uk/health/glycogen-storage-disorders-leaflet


    http://www.agsdus.org/index.html

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