Europe versus US

[Andromeda18_]

Second lets take a look at the genetic factors, while it is true that familys all share simialar weights, that could just imply that they passed down the same unhealthy eating habits, but consider this, acourding to http://www.cdc.gov/genomics/info/perspec...esedit.htm several studies of adoptid identical twins, in different adopted homes had the similar weights, this show encridibly strong evidence of a genetic factor.

Although rare obesity syndromes caused by mutations in single genes have been described, by far the greatest proportion of obesity in humans is not due to mutations in single genes

Learning how genetic variations affect susceptibility to become or remain obese will lead us to a greater understanding of how obesity occurs and, hopefully, how better to prevent and treat this condition.

It's very clearly stated here that obesity can be prevented because the truth is that even if some people are more prone to being overweight than others it can be prevented. And that's exactly what I criticize, that people fail to prevent these situations. It's obvious some people have a greater genetic disposition to being overweight it doesn't take a genius to figure that out nor studies to prove it. Just look around yourself and you'll see, some people can eat whatever they want without gaining any weight while others gain 2 pounds just from eating a muffin! But genetics explains the situation, it doesn't excuse it!

Does this mean that those with a susceptible genotype are destined to a life of futile efforts to achieve a healthy weight? This need not be the case. We can?t change our genes, but we can change our behavior.

This is exactly what I mean! I watch health related shows everyday (yeah, I'm sick :p ) and what every single doctor says is that people need to stop stuffing their faces (literally) and exercise more (and stop smoking). Many years ago when our society wasn't so prone to all sorts of excesses and people weren't so inactive there weren't such cases of obesity. I've heard many doctors say that 70 or 80 years ago (well, at least here in Europe) you could hardly find a fat person because the life style back then didn't allow it. People moved a lot more than they do now and they ate much healthier food.
Japan is the perfect example of this. Due to their healthy diet there were barely any fat people there not too many years ago but with the introduction of unhealthy western food the number of overweight people has been increasing. The Japanese population is still thinner than the population of most industrialized western countries but in some decades that might no longer be the case.

i cant beleive how grossly missinformed you are, where to start? why not "when you ask them about their life styles you realize its all their fault" While there life style does need a healthy change, once your already that huge, and can barly move, trying to change your life style will be more harmfull then continueing their downward spiral.

For starters what I meant by that was that they got to be that fat because of their life style. Those people were likely thin at one point and if we exclude situations in which parents are responsible for a child's obesity and obesity caused by disease and other exceptional situations, then people get fat due to their own wrong doing. And like Cidien said the truth is exceptional situations are rare! The problem here is that when they didn't have such a problem they caused it. I wasn't complaining about the fact that they eat too much now that they're fat, I was complaining about the fact that eating too much was what caused them to be fat.

Moving on, "I see it as a lack of self-control and low self-esteem. And I'm not even talking about aesthetics, I'm talking about something far more important, health!" these people are un healthy in more ways then one, do you ever wonder why they call it morbidly obease? hmmm i wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that almost all people that are morbidly obease are clinicly morbidly depressed, mybe if they work through their psycological problems, they can focus on their phsyical problems. I write this not because i am an advocate for the obease, but because i hate when people put down something that they dont fully understand...Obeasity is clasifyed as a dissease becuase bum bum bum, most people that have it need clinical help to cure it, and most of all, it is rareley their fault

They are indeed depressed but in most cases they are depressed because they are obese, not the other way around. And they don't call it morbid obesity because of that.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a person is considered "obese" when he or she weighs 20 percent or more than his or her ideal body weight. At that point, the person's weight poses a real health risk. Obesity becomes "morbid" when it significantly increases the risk of one or more obesity-related health conditions or serious diseases (also known as co-morbidities). Morbid obesity--sometimes called "clinically severe obesity--is defined as being 100 lbs. or more over ideal body weight or having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 or higher.
An estimated 5-10 million Americans are considered morbidly obese.

So, as you can see being named morbid obese has nothing to do with being morbidly depressed.


I'm not putting these people down and I'm all for helping them get out of that situation. You just can ask me to feel sorry for them when in the end they did it to themselves, whether their genes made it easier or harder to keep a healthy weight.