Programmed to be fat?

[Footjab]

Interesting episode of The Nature of Things last night:

CBC -The Nature of Things with David Suzuki - Episode - Programmed to be Fat?

Highlights various studies that are bringing to light new details on the role that endocrine disruptors in our food chain/environment play in the "obesity epidemic" Definitely worth the watch.

To be clear (before someone goes off on a rant) they do not excuse people for being sedentary and gluttonous.

Thoughts?

[WOAT]

I don't know seems possible

[Dogstarman]

It says I can't watch it.

[Dogstarman]

Originally Posted by WOAT

I don't know seems possible

I remember seeing that. It was hilarious that those kids didn't give a crap about what kind a junk they were eating.

[Nemesis48]

Also could not watch the video, when I tried to play it it said "This content is currently unavailable" - but I think at this point it's a truism that some people are genetically predisposed to fatness, and I think the main factor is a sensitivity to carbohydrate for certain individuals. It's not just customary eating habits of a family - although that can compound fatness, it's also the biochemistry that we inherited from ancestors.

[cooks1]

Yeah, video not working. One of my favorite quotes from the article though:

But a small group of scientists have begun looking beyond the obvious because of a group that can’t chew, let alone jog: infant obesity rose more than 70 per cent in just 20 years. You can’t blame them for unhealthy lifestyles. The scientists suspect that, starting in the womb, man-made chemicals may be triggering changes to our metabolism that result in life-long weight gain.

Why would you need or want to look 'beyond the obvious' when the blatantly obvious pretty much explains everything?

While it's true you can't blame an infant for being obese due to an unhealthy lifestyle- you can sure as shit blame it's parents.

I have still yet to see a single infant that was obese (for an infant that is- those little cherubs are supposed to be kinda chunky to begin with) that was breastfed for it's first 10-12 months and then weaned onto a balanced diet, while undertaking a reasonable activity level for an infant.

[miaou]

Heritability and environment are both important factors when it comes to the "cause of obesity".

In this case, environment is both dietary factors (mainly availability and palatability of food) and lifestyle/activity, and heritability is the risk of vulnerability to a given unfavorable environmental conditions. In a hypothetical environment of zero activity and virtual unlimited availability of food (both in terms of quantity and palatability), some people are more likely than others to become obese.

There are some highly-regarded researchers in the field who ascribe to the view that, in modern society, obesity is mainly genetically-predetermined (although, I personally don't agree with this).

[Revok]

There are also some recent discoveries being made about the human microbiome (flora in the gut, and everywhere else) seem to be throwing yet more spanners into the works of these formerly neat thermodynamic theories of metabolism. Apparently, over an average lifespan a healthy human gut produces microbial mass equivalent to five elephants; we understand scant few of these microbial species forming the basis of digestion, and much less what their interaction and fluctuations mean to the body as a whole. It's as though we've just discovered a new internal organ, but modern science still has a credible theory of metabolism. Honest.

tl;dr: my brain is full of fuck. I'm signing off from the whole fat debate.

[miaou]

Originally Posted by Revok

There are also some recent discoveries being made about the human microbiome (flora in the gut, and everywhere else) seem to be throwing yet more spanners into the works of these formerly neat thermodynamic theories of metabolism. Apparently, over an average lifespan a healthy human gut produces microbial mass equivalent to five elephants; we understand scant few of these microbial species forming the basis of digestion, and much less what their interaction and fluctuations mean to the body as a whole. It's as though we've just discovered a new internal organ, but modern science still has a credible theory of metabolism. Honest.

I haven't even heard of that!

Refs plz?

[Revok]

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