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alexandraerinSo, there's this crazy study out that says that obese teenagers' metabolisms aren't affected by moderate amounts of aerobic exercise in the same way that thin teenagers' metabolisms are... that while the obese teenagers gain important health benefits from exercising, their metabolisms don't kick into high fat-burning gear and thus they don't tend to lose weight from it.
It's almost like two people could eat the same things, exercise the same, and have the same habits and yet have entirely differently shaped bodies based on uncontrollable inherited conditions! And to get even crazier, it's almost as though those habits have a bigger impact on one's health than what size and shape one's skin is in!
Crazy!
Usually when somebody brings up the immutability of obesity in a conversation like this, someone chimes in with "Maybe there are some people who are fat because of a gland problem or something but that's super rare and it doesn't account for most people who are fat." That's a Conversation We Won't Be Having Here, but just to be clear: I'm not saying that most fat people have a problem. I'm saying most fat people have a different metabolism than skinny people do.
Not a worse metabolism. A different one.
One that seems to be shared by a large proportion of the population, which suggests that it's not entirely inimical to the survival of individuals or the species as a whole.
What a world, what a world.
It's almost like two people could eat the same things, exercise the same, and have the same habits and yet have entirely differently shaped bodies based on uncontrollable inherited conditions! And to get even crazier, it's almost as though those habits have a bigger impact on one's health than what size and shape one's skin is in!
Crazy!
Usually when somebody brings up the immutability of obesity in a conversation like this, someone chimes in with "Maybe there are some people who are fat because of a gland problem or something but that's super rare and it doesn't account for most people who are fat." That's a Conversation We Won't Be Having Here, but just to be clear: I'm not saying that most fat people have a problem. I'm saying most fat people have a different metabolism than skinny people do.
Not a worse metabolism. A different one.
One that seems to be shared by a large proportion of the population, which suggests that it's not entirely inimical to the survival of individuals or the species as a whole.
What a world, what a world.
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on 2010-02-19 07:37 am (UTC)I am 5'11" and weigh 135 pounds. If I were healthy I would weigh at least 20 pounds more. My sisters are both "overweight", they both weigh more than me in fact, despite being a fair bit shorter. We have very similar lifestyles, spending most of our time on the computer. I actually get less exercise than one of my sisters who is worried about her weight.
My point is, even in the relatively narrow genetic variation of a single family, there are drastic enough differences in metabolism to create under and over weight individuals with essentially the same lifestyle.
Stress probably plays a large part of the difference, now that I think about it; I am much more mellow generally and also lacking their highly stressful mental diseases. Again, luck of the genetic draw.