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NYT article about obesity stating it's genetic, not lack of willpower
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WinoGelato wrote: »
Seriously just laughed out loud and my son is asking me if I'm ok LOL! Just got done reading that other thread
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BrunetteRunner87 wrote: »I just saw this article in the New York Times today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/health/americans-obesity-willpower-genetics-study.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-2&action=click&contentCollection=Health®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article&_r=0
I don't generally tend to put much stock in what the NYT says, but is it possible that obesity can't be helped by willpower? Should we bother to try to lose weight? My first thought about this is that it's a load of crap, but if it's what science says how can I dispute it?
Havent read it yet but in my experience there is a HUGE difference between what Science actually says and what journalists writting about science say that Science says. Usually Science says something rather dry, reasonable yet boring while journalists pick something out of it, misinterpret or embelish it to make it sensationalized.
PhD comics had the perfect way of summing that up:
Maybe this article is somehow the exception...but I doubt it.35 -
If it were genetics, why do we now have more obesity than 20 years ago?
This is always my thought.
Sure, there are genetic predispositions that might make some of us find it more difficult to resist the various environmental influences on obesity, but that doesn't mean we CAN'T, just that it might take a little more thought or attention or other strategies.0 -
If it were genetics, why do we now have more obesity than 20 years ago?
Good point. But if it was willpower, then why do we apparently have much less willpower than 20 years ago?
And why do I apparently have much less willpower than I did 20 years ago? But more than I did four years ago, when I was heavier?
I think it has to be mixture of genetics and other factors. I find it difficult to believe it's just down to a massive decrease in the population's willpower.
Our environment has changed. Food is more easily available and cheaper (in time, at least), customs have changed, activity is less (well, than longer ago, probably not than 20 years ago, but then 1996 was already well into the obesity problem).5 -
ladyreva78 wrote: »As far as I'm concerned it's a scaremongering piece of *kitten*, not even very well written, that rests on a 'representative' survey of barely 1'500 people. How that can be representative is beyond me to be honest.
It's kind of like making a soup. Sometimes you stir it, sometimes you pull a spoonful out to taste it and see if you need to add anything. You don't have to eat the entire soup to know it needs more salt, that would defeat the purpose, you just have to sample a spoonful.1 -
I've written this before, but I am old enough to have seen the U.S. get fat. There was one fat girl in my elementary school, out of about 400 kids. There is no way that group had 50% genetically overweight people in it but now I am coming up on 50, I bet 50% of my age cohort is overweight. In my kid's classes there are many more overweight kids now too. Genetics doesn't work that fast. Diet, diet, and idleness are what happened. Nutrition and behavior.
That one fat girl in my elementary? Tanya. We were friends. Her, I absolutely would believe had a genetic predisposition to be fat. The rest of us didn't.15 -
NorthCascades wrote: »ladyreva78 wrote: »As far as I'm concerned it's a scaremongering piece of *kitten*, not even very well written, that rests on a 'representative' survey of barely 1'500 people. How that can be representative is beyond me to be honest.
It's kind of like making a soup. Sometimes you stir it, sometimes you pull a spoonful out to taste it and see if you need to add anything. You don't have to eat the entire soup to know it needs more salt, that would defeat the purpose, you just have to sample a spoonful.
True. But a soup is supposed to be homogeneous. Meaning if you taste one spoonful you taste the whole and can accurately judge from that whether you've dumped too much salt in or not. I'm having trouble believing that you can represent the views of a country's population with 1500 people. I find it ridiculous in my country (8 million inhabitants), I find it even more ridiculous in a country of the US's proportions.
I also often wonder how they select the 'representative' people they survey. Not to mention, how honest the answers are. Anything based on a representative survey tends to leave a bitter aftertaste in my mouth as there's just too many factors that don't add up in my mind. Not to mention I know how so-so I tend to answer surveys myself. (Agreed, that's just me, but still... I tend to assume the worst of everyone).
That it then warrants an article in the NYTimes...
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I understand. I totally don't believe airplanes can fly. I mean, they're made out of metal, and metal is really heavy. Way heavier than air, for sure. The idea is ridiculous. And yet planes fly every day. Just like representative surveys can predict who will be elected. Because they work, if done properly, even if some people don't believe it.1
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It wasn't even a "study", it was a survey of 1500 people. A survey has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with "what science says". And the "study" was funded by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.
LOL. LOLOL.23 -
It wasn't even a "study", it was a survey of 1500 people. A survey has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with "what science says". And the "study" was funded by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.
LOL. LOLOL.
Question: Is anyone in your immediate family obese?
Respondent: Yes.
Repeat 1,500 times.
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NorthCascades wrote: »I understand. I totally don't believe airplanes can fly. I mean, they're made out of metal, and metal is really heavy. Way heavier than air, for sure. The idea is ridiculous. And yet planes fly every day. Just like representative surveys can predict who will be elected. Because they work, if done properly, even if some people don't believe it.
I guess I've just see too many badly executed representative surveys to truly be able to believe in them anymore. It doesn't help this one's case that it was sponsored by a society who promotes bariatric surgery or the somewhat lamentable level of the article which brought it to our attention. I'm all for good packaging.
(as for the airplanes... it's magic! And I should have kept my nose out of my father's aerodynamics course. It totally ruined the magic for me
) 2 -
The survey may be rubbish (I don't know), but I do get the impression that there are a lot of people who think obesity is caused by lack of willpower.0
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The survey may be rubbish (I don't know), but I do get the impression that there are a lot of people who think obesity is caused by lack of willpower.
As mentioned above, there are many factors that contribute to obesity. Culture, lifestyle, income level, education, and yes, sometimes genetic factors play a part. Obesity is not caused by a lack of willpower per se, but knowing an how to eat within your TDEE and applying that by eating less or adjusting your activity level. Obesity always comes down to consuming more calories than your body burns, which is why it ultimately comes down to personal responsibility. A genetic condition may have caused your (general you) TDEE to be a bit lower than average for your age/height/sex, but the genetic condition did not cause you to overeat.5 -
I agree with others here that it's got to be something other than genetic predisposition. Eating is highly social in humans and food culture varies tremendously, even within relatively small regions (e.g., neighborhoods). We decide what we put into our mouths.
Children learn habits from their parents, including food choice, food prep, food volume, food frequency; healthy, active lifestyle or sedentary, etc. If an overweight child's parents are obese, I would assume that the child learned how and what to eat from them.
I presume that the "hundreds of genes that can predispose to obesity" mentioned in the article are at least partly determined from studies of separated twins... but how do you know that you've accounted for family lifestyle, activity, eating habits, regional, social, economic, and cultural factors in those studies?
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Somewhat germane: my ex-wife, who was overweight, would absolutely FREAK THE *KITTEN* OUT if more than say 4 hours had passed since her last meal. Timing foods throughout the day was a tremendous source of stress -- for both of us!!! Any vacation, day trip, or the like, the first thing we had to do was figure out where, when and what to eat so that the terrible 4-hour mark would not be breached.
My point is: three squares and two snacks is a relatively modern concept. And millions (billions?) of people don't even enjoy it today. So, how would my ex have survived 500 years ago? Or in a hunter gatherer society? (Ok, enough vitriol against the ex. Lol.)
We live in a time and place of such plenty that I think our expectations have gone totally out of whack.
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The survey may be rubbish (I don't know), but I do get the impression that there are a lot of people who think obesity is caused by lack of willpower.
I don't think lack of willpower is necessarily the cause, but willpower is necessary to do something about it should you choose to start prioritizing your health.9 -
My point wasn't really about whether there are other causes of obesity, but about whether the general gist of the article might be correct (that people tend to attribute obesity to lack of willpower). I've certainly heard people talk as if they're making this assumption. So yes, the survey may have uncovered something true about how people think about obesity.2
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The survey may be rubbish (I don't know), but I do get the impression that there are a lot of people who think obesity is caused by lack of willpower.
Every time I've gotten fat, it's been 100% because of a lack of willpower/motivation. It's when I enjoy being lazy and eating whatever I want (and as much as I want) more than I enjoy working out and keeping a caloric deficit. I know enough about the principles of nutrition and exercise to attain/maintain a healthy weight - when I go off the rails it's not that I suddenly lost the knowledge, or that my genetics suddenly took a hard right turn. It's simply that I got lazy and lacked the motivation to do anything about it.
I refuse to take the easy way out and blame it on genetics, or the environment, or the accessibility of fast food, or the serving sizes in restaurants or whatever other bogeyman. I got fat because I wasn't willing to do what I needed to do to change it.27 -
It's because we are eating more meat then back in the 70's.
I kid I kid!
I tend to lean towards poor decision making because food doesn't fly into our mouths, we have to make that decision to eat it. But that would be a little to simple because there so much misinformation out there it becomes confusing as to what to do. There are too many "rules" by "experts" and almost zero information on how to keep the weight off.
There's my sophomoric stab at it.4 -
The survey may be rubbish (I don't know), but I do get the impression that there are a lot of people who think obesity is caused by lack of willpower.
Every time I've gotten fat, it's been 100% because of a lack of willpower/motivation. It's when I enjoy being lazy and eating whatever I want (and as much as I want) more than I enjoy working out and keeping a caloric deficit. I know enough about the principles of nutrition and exercise to attain/maintain a healthy weight - when I go off the rails it's not that I suddenly lost the knowledge, or that my genetics suddenly took a hard right turn. It's simply that I got lazy and lacked the motivation to do anything about it.
I refuse to take the easy way out and blame it on genetics, or the environment, or the accessibility of fast food, or the serving sizes in restaurants or whatever other bogeyman. I got fat because I wasn't willing to do what I needed to do to change it.
Not me. When I got fat it was genetics/my wife/the dogs fault. When I lose weight, it's all me because I have such great willpower, knowledge and am just an all around brilliant guy.32
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