You just love trying to rile us up don’t you. 
You’re going to up the legitimacy of your sources from Discover Magazine. Also, note that that article is 10 years old. They have consumed A LOT of calories since then.
“It’s tobacco; it’s good for you.” That’s a joke from Sleeper. And a funny one–but too many people seem to think that it represents the entire reality, and that nobody really has any idea of what’s healthy and what isn’t. That really isn’t the case, although the specifics do change.
watch the video it is done in an entertaining fashion but it is very informative.(lots of things are available on youtube, it is just a way to share information…being on youtube is not a sign of nor proof of lack of validity)
and if some people in scandinavia falsely believe in stereotypes and make over the top generalizations that shows that type of behavior is not unique to north america.(as we already knew)
look bottom line you do not have to agree with me but maybe if you just look past what you have been told repeatedly over and over again you might …just might realize that this subject is not a settled science or even close to it.
In some ways yes.
If your mother was heavy while pregnant with you, and continued to eat in a way which kept her above the recommended weight you get a starter set of fat genes.
http://www.healthline.com/health-news/fat-mothers-fat-babies-researchers-say-yes-060915
So, one more thing for which to blame mom.
@dietz199, no one is disputing that genes impact a person. That would be just as silly as the OP’s assertion that “fate” determines everything and we are completely powerless in our ability to impact our own health.
So your counter-argument to the CDC and the scientific establishment is Penn and Teller?
I’ve seen the video and it’s entertaining. Some of it is even true. However, I get my science from the scientific literature, not from Penn, Teller, Paul Campos, or Glenn Gaesser (although Campos does have some good points.)
^^^ Agreed. I think what the article points out is that our current obesity epidemic was started a generation (or two) ago. Maternal weight has been increasing. Of course, now the genetically disposed offspring of the overweight mom’s are producing their own offspring, which are of course, genetically disposed to obesity.
I completely agree that we have some control over our genetic destiny. But, regretfully, I think we have a couple of generations of folks who will never be ‘normal’ weight.
scout59, penn and teller do a great service with their showtime series. take what you want from them but, on many subjects they get you thinking and do it in a entertaining way. I would not sell the show short as a good way to get people thinking.
From this month’s Harpers Index:
Average weight of an American male in 1960: 168 pounds
Average weight of an American female today: 166 pounds
We were at a water park last week. Based on my unscientific observations, I’m calling it an obesity epidemic.
Genetics … or curly fries?
“I completely agree that we have some control over our genetic destiny. But, regretfully, I think we have a couple of generations of folks who will never be ‘normal’ weight.”
So is this due to genetics, or environmental factors??? Food choices, lack of $$ to buy quality food, fast food in our face, jumping into the car for every trip instead of walking, etc. ???
Genes definitely can influence not only how much we weigh, but WHERE we tend to accumulate fat (or not). Emphasis on the word “Influence.”
Most people can make lifestyle changes which will impact their weight, though it well may NOT make them skinny or reduce their behind to their perceived perfect size if they come from a long line of fat bottomed people. 
But we are not just talking about weight, we are talking about health. It is possible for MOST people to positively impact their health (or negatively impact their health) through the choices they make with regard to what they put in their body and what they do with their body in their waking hours.
just read this
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/why-salad-is-so-overrated/2015/08/21/ecc03d7a-4677-11e5-8ab4-c73967a143d3_story.html
kind of relevant
This comes down to the old argument about nurture versus nature. Yes, there is a reality that people being overweight is genetic, that there are people who have a tendency towards putting on weight, while others can be the other way. The old puritan crap about gluttony, blaming people, is a simplistic notion that assumes everyone is the same, and that isn’t true. That said, it is also just as simplistic to assume it is all genetics and therefore it doesn’t matter.
The reality is that across the board, for all body types, the average weight is up for the most part. With the exception of those genetically who burn off anything they eat, everyone else in general has gotten larger. Comparing 50 years ago till today, the numbers speak for themself, it is up a lot.
Okay, so what is the difference? I don’t think genetics have changed, and I don’t think a mother eating too much changes the genetics of the baby (it can foul up potentially their metabolism). I also think that genetic predispositions to, for example, obesity doesn’t mean you don’t even try to eat healthy, to try and get fit. It isn’t about weight (which I have serious problems with, for a number of reasons), it is about eating healthy and doing the best you can. If you have a family history of cancer, there are things you can do to try and avoid getting it. If you are predisposed to heart disease, there are things you can do, too, that may not totally eliminate the risk, but for example, might forestall it or if it does happen, make it less destructive. It doesn’t mean someone who is obese let’s say is going to get down to the size of an athlete, but it is about maximizing things.
As far as the cause, it doesn’t take rocket science to figure this out, and no one cause predominates, here are what I think has happened since 1960:
1)We are a lot more sedentary society, from kids to adults, and it shows. In 1960, even with TV, people were a lot more active, even growing up in the 1970’s kids were out playing after dinner, kids were playing in the afternoon, for example. Kids lives these days have turned into couch potato central, they are either on playdates fostered by the parents, they are playing video games or on the net, and then once they get past a certain point the schools have slammed them with homework…and freaked out parents of middle and upper middle income kids have started kids on afterschool, programs, too. Less kids are playing organized sports as well, and that is not a good sign.
High school kids are on the go, between school and all the EC’s, and they aren’t as active as they should be, either.
Adults are slammed, we are working longer hours and taking less time off then ever before. Working adults have their job interfere with their personal time (as i well know), and often things like exercise go out the window, and they are grabbing meals on the fly. Put it this way, if most adults worked the kind of hours they do today in the 1960’s, they would have had a revolt that made what the hippies and yippies were doing look tame.
2)Despite all the complaints back then, about no time to cook, poor cooking habits, tv dinners and so forth, back then a lot more of the food we ate was generally made at home, for one thing, back then there were a lot more stay at home parents and even with not necessarily stellar cooking, it was still likely better than what people are eating today (last I checked, only 15% of families have a stay at home parent). It made a big difference, people ate out a lot less then as a whole.
3)While people back then used more than a bit of processed foods, it was nowhere near what we have today. Among other things, the widespread use of sugar as filler, especially the wonderfully cheap high fructose corn syrup thanks to subsidies, is only one of the differences.The number of things that now have sugar in them, especially ‘low fat’ foods, has grown substantially and a lot of it is hidden. There is also a big difference in the meat you eat today, today most meat (leaving out hormones and antibiotics) is fattened up rapidly using cheap corn feed, and it has led to meat that is cheaper than it was back then, and also a lot more fatty (fatty beef has more calories per portion then lean meat does).
Chicken likewise is cheaper, it is also a lot bigger than it was in 1960, again thanks in part to being fed corn.
4)Eating out has changed, too, not only are we doing it more often, but portion sizes are often twice as much or more calorically then they were in 1960. A mcdonald’s burger and fries you bought in 1960 would likely be like something off the dollar menu today, while not that great for you, paled in comparison to what they serve today. Even in regular restaurant, other than chi chi places that charge 25 bucks for 1 scallop, when you go to restaurants these days most people go to, the size is considered a selling factor…and people are eating it.
5)Another problem is that the healthiest eating is often more expensive, fresh fruits and vegetables are expensive, and are not available to all people as readily as you think, and in some ways it is a lot cheaper to eat at a fast food restaurant than cooking at home (and again, like everything else, this varies, but I remember reading a mission report to Apalachia, with some of the poorest people around, and a lot of their diet was things like cheap breakfast cereal and white bread and such, for example).
- It is complex, too, because even where healthy alternatives are available, there can be cultural factors or other reasons. I am struck by it wandering around NYC, where there are a lot of tourists from all over the place, all over the world, and for example, when I see European tourists for the most part they are not way overweight, some might stand to lose some weight, but I don’t see people way over whatever a healthy weight is. Yet when i see tourists from the midwest and from down south, a lot more of the people are very heavy, and sadly, so are the kids (and no, it doesn’t mean people in the NY region who live here are necessarily poster children for health, I see a lot of people and their kids who are going to have trouble, but a lot of people are also at a somewhat healthy weight; maybe it only reflects tourists, though having travelled to places in other parts of the country, I saw much the same thing in many places) .
I personally think that our lifestyles have changed significantly, and at the same time because of things like government policy and the growth of the mega ag businesses and the growth of gigantic processed food empires, you have a mix of things that have created the problem. I have seen some encouraging trends, for the first time restaurants have started cutting down portion sizes, and people are starting to eat a bit less. I also wonder if fast food restaurants raise their wages (or are forced to) if to make up the difference, restaurants won’t be offering the cheap mega meals with the large soda, large fries and the big burger, but rather for the same price will offer something more modest, and if that will change anything…
I think the real answer is going to be when people realize the cost of all this and where, like with smoking, there is a real attempt to get people to eat healthy, to get across that obesity is a health issue with huge costs. Like with smoking, it is going to take a real shift in mindsets, it is going to be battling the interests of the large food processors, it is going to be changing things like government policy (for example, heavy taxes on cigarettes are credited with cutting down adult smoking), where maybe we won’t subsidize cheap beef and cheap sugar (ie HFC),and maybe encourage subsidizing more healthy foods, like whole grains, maybe subsidize meat raised on grass, and so forth.
One of my high school classmates posted a photo of a bunch of us back in 1978. At first, I couldn’t figure out what struck me as odd. Then I realized that not a single one of the group was overweight! As opposed to the prom photos I see these days that make me cringe.
I also think it’s worth noting that even if you have the genes to stay thin, you can still be unhealthy, due to poor nutrition. If you eat a processed/fast-food diet, even if you don’t gain weight, it’s likely it’s still doing damage to your body. There is even a term for it TOFI (thin on the outside, fat on the inside - referring to the fat on the internal organs). So yes, I obviously believe ‘nurture’, aka what we put in our bodies, our lifestyle, etc. plays a huge role in our health, regardless of whether we are predisposed to have above-average, below-average, or average weight gain, relative to the rest of the population.
LOL. You do get a set of genes from your mother, but her weight during gestation or her eating habits can NOT give you a set of “fat genes”.
^^^ Please read the link, or at least the quote.
Waste of my time.
“At this point, because this is fairly preliminary, we don’t know how these differences in cells grown in the lab correspond to the physiology of these children after birth,…"
Don’t jump to conclusions based on single studies and certainly not on such basic findings.
dietz, JustOneDad is correct - the genes you get are the genes you get - and that is determined by the specific egg and sperm that combine to form that first cell that gives rise to the embryo and later to the baby. It is set in stone, just like the computer code in that OS that comes with your brand new PC or Mac. However, the environment plays a huge role in what parts of the code may get executed (this is called “gene expression”) and whether the code can get corrupted (mutations). That is what the article was taking about. We know that a developing fetus is highly succeptible to things that the mother eats and does. For instance, if the mother takes thalidomide, the baby’s limb development is likely to be impaired. Does it mean that the baby’s missing limbs were sealed in the genes? No. But thalidomide blocked the part of the machinery that was needed for the limb development. Ditto alcohol and lack of nutrition - they lead to malformed babies. And these authors now found that obesity of the mother may detrimentally affects the baby’s development - possibly through exposure to higher levels of insulin circulating in the blood, other hormones, some other metabolites that they have yet to identify. I assume the researchers used proper controls in their experiments.
^^^ they can, if she is pregnant during a time of starvation. Studies have shown that happening to the babies of European women who were pregnant during WWII, for example. It makes sense, that the fetus and later adult, would have a body that clings to every calorie it can get. But it’s an extreme example, not a matter of 5 or 10 pounds in the Mom.