Scientific breakthrough, OMG! Shut your piehole and exercise; remarkable! Who ever would have thought it?

yep.

Some of the comments here are way beyond arrogant and callous! In the Nurture VS Nature argument (and yes this is a bit arbitrary) 90% is easily genetics. I am a Personal Trainer and have clients for whom no amount of exercise, good eating and happy thoughts will make them anything more then relatively healthy people with "stubborn" high levels of adipose tissue. Have you ever seen thin healthy looking adults scarfing pizza, three orders in, beer, desert and making fun of a "fat" person the next table over making the best of her salad - I have. The world is full of Jerks and so called Christians who act anything but Christian!

I hope they find something to help. The money spent on drugs and insulin is unreal even though a lot of people try to control their condition. However, I don't think the big and small pharmas will take kindly to having a HUGE profit center just sliced from their bottom line. Look for some nefarious quirks in the progression of this story. Remember how the electric car got killed 30 years ago? Duh.....

It is obvious that you have never had a weight problem. You can quit smoking cold turkey, you can quit drugs cold turkey, you can stop doing anything you like with enough will power, but you can NOT stop eating! It is like making an alcoholic take just one sip of booze every day but NO more. Totally impossible for the average person.

One pill makes you happy and one pill makes you sad...go ask Alice when she's ten feet tall.

Tank...nice of you to find time to bash Christians in a forum about obesity.

While I agree there are people that call themselves Christian but have no idea what it is to be one, they are the exception rather than the rule. The vast majority of Christians have their hearts in the right places but they are just as fallible as everyone else. Mocking Christianity because Christians arent perfect is absurd.

If the prerequisite to being a Christian is being perfect and void of all sin, then by that account, the only Christian in the history of mankind is Jesus.

It's one thing to not be perfect, to make a few mistakes, but to blatantly disregard basically everything Jesus talked about in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John disqualifies many folks in this country from being called true Christians.

Gluttony always leads to morbid obesity. Once you are there it's nearly impossible to find your way back. We are all genetically predisposed to become obese if we constantly take in more than our metabolism can handle. I'm not going to judge anyone for that one character flaw, but if you are some loud mouth politcal pundit or politician who makes a bad habit of unrighteously judging others, then you are going to get it.

The Obesity Switch is not only turned on every time you stuff your face with garbage you wouldn't give a dog, it continues to run at high speed every time you plop down on the couch and refuse to move your old lard butt around.

Obesity is simple math: too many calories + not enough exercise = fatter + fatter.

Ther are a lot of people who blame America, fast food, and a sedentary lifestyle. You all need to wake up! Why? Because this is not a US issue -- did you even read the articel. It is world-wide. In South Africa and India, where they do not have fast food joints, there is an obesity problem. And their lifestyle is far harder than ours. How do you explain that?

Certainly there's a role that diet and excerise play -- you'd be a fool to deny it. But, from my perspective -- I believe that a lot of this is the result of some not-so-obvious causes that would have effects worldwide: like Human adenovirus 36 (HAdV-36) (look it up on Wikipoedia sometime).

How will we address it: the way we've successfully addressed so many health issues (lots of people died from diseases that are completely preventable with immunizations) with better technology.

Surprisingly, I don't think this is the needed discovery -- unless we find that it regulates the quantity of brown fat. If so, then this is a golden find and if we can tune it to produce more brown fat, the results will be obvious. But, it is truly sad that so many people blame those with a weight issue for something that, in my opinion, is not the result of them being lazy or dumb. It's just a different way of bullying.

Why didn't this "obesity switch" exist before the invention of home video games?

@AZChzhd

'If the prerequisite to being a Christian is being perfect and void of all sin, then by that account, the only Christian in the history of mankind is Jesus.'

um, i know i am an atheist and all that, and i would never deign to question your beliefs, but i am pretty sure Jesus was a Jew.

@Tank and others. As I've already commented in previous threads, I can disprove the whole "genetics is 90%" thing easily. Go find me a fat starving person. If your genetics are "90%" responsible for your weight, then you should have some poor 300lbs person in Africa who's starving and desperately needs food else they'll die. After all the fat just magically appeared there.

Now here's the real skinny on this. The majority of fat is nothing but stored energy. It represents the chemical fuel tank of your body. If you are constantly "refueling" with more energy (carbohydrates mostly) without exhausting that energy, then your body will continuously expand on its fuel tank while storing every drop of chemical energy it can. There are only two ways to remove this chemical energy, surgically have it removed (liposuction) or metabolize it into energy and burn it through physical exertion.

To put it simply, energy in vs energy out. If you have a positive daily energy balance then you will gain weight, if you have a negative daily energy balance (Averaged) then you will lose weight. Its simple physics and is rather immutable. No amount of hand wringing, screaming, or arguing will alter the fundamental law that matter doesn't spontaneously come into existence. The matter that makes up fat cells must be put there somewhere, and that mechanism is rather well understood.

What everyone's ~really~ looking for is a way to control the desire to eat. The instinctual desire to consume every ounce of energy available. This desire isn't equally manifest in everyone, some people have a higher rate of desire for food then others. And honestly it does boil down to basic will power and an individual's ability to over ride their body's desire for its dopamine fix (your brain produces a dopamine buzz whenever your stomach is slightly over full). Its basically food addiction, or rather addiction to the dopamine your brain produces. And it must be dealt with like any other addiction. The problem is this particular addiction happens to make many people and many companies obscenely rich, and make even more people rich during the process of "curing" the addiction.

Please I dare anyone to attempt to argue with this. Come on and try to prove how fat is created out of thin air. Or that it mysteriously gets sucked in through some trans-dimensional black hole into the stomach's of fat people. That line of reasoning ends with a poor fat starving person in Africa.

But aren't hand wringing, screaming, and arguing forms of calorie burning exercise? I'm just sayin'

One word people who think that portion control and diet is the only way, "Cushings" Google it and learn something.

Hey Tank what the hell does acting Christian have to do with anything. People can act Buddhist, Hindu or Islamic for all I care, just as long as they have good morals, religion shouldnt play a part of how people act

Optomyst: I don't go to fast food restaurants, I don't eat preprocessed foods, I grow and fix my own. When I do go to a restaurant, the first thing I ask for is a take home box, because restaurants serve portions to feed three people. I exercise 2 hours per day and yet, I am still overweight and am working on developing diabetes. I have had so many tests done which say I have nothing that would contribute to my obesity, yet, I am still fat. My current doctor keeps scratching his head and I am now cutting out meat in my diet which has shown a modicum of effect with a small weight loss. I hate vegetables, just so you know. For the hundreds of thousands of people like me, to say that we overeat and don't exercise, is bull. Maybe our bodies don't have the switch talked about in this article, or maybe it's in hyperdrive. I don't know, but, until all of you who feel that it's my fault walk in my shoes, you don't have the right to even comment about the problem.

So many haters on here. Until you suffer from someone else's problem, you should probably just shut up.

As for the study, sign me up.

BTW, I exercise regularly, am practically a vegetarian, and seldom eat sugary or fast food, yet I suffer from some of the items in the article. It's genetic, deal with it.

Awesome!

This makes me wonder how many more "switches" for problems they can find!!!

Theotherguy:

No, you cannot disprove the 90% figure. We do not know nearly enough to state with any degree of certainty what that figure is, although based on the evidence we now have, the figure is very likely in excess of 90%.

Hanging your argument on only one tiny portion of the DNA in our bodies is utterly absurd and displays a stunning ignorance of the complexity of the information contained in coding.

In and of itself, that shows your argument is based on flim-flammery. However, it is also abundantly clear that you have no understanding of Statistics either.

You have nothing to bring to the Math and Science game. Stay home with your video games.

There are literally millions of people in your exact situation in this country alone. Even when they seem to be doing everything as advised - plenty of "exercise", smaller portions, less meat, etc. - they still can't seem to stop, not to mention reverse, the fat gain. Now, in most areas of life, when something doesn't work or hurts after years of earnest effort, the usual solution is to "stop doing that!" and try something different. But in health care, the typical response has been: you just haven't been doing enough! So, people are shamed into doing more of what hasn't worked. You don't have to be a genius or a PhD to understand that doing more of an ineffective activity is not going to make it any more effective. It is time for all sufferers from fat to take their health into their own hands and think for themselves rather than follow the same prescriptions from overweight doctors, fat friends and the carb-based food pyramid from our fat government. Unfortunately, reliable useful information is hard to come by unless you know what you are looking for to begin with. But it is out there, and it has helped countless people stay healthy and regain or maintain control over their bodies. As someone who sympathizes with people who've come to a dead end, I want to point you toward the only effective way to fight fat: start doing the opposite of what you have been doing all these years: swap hours of aerobic "cardio" exercise for minutes of anaerobic large-muscle exercise; eat as much as you want, but make sure it comes in the form of minimally processed protein and fats (from milk, meat, fish and nuts); cut the carbs (bread, pasta, sugar, most fruit and fruit juice, sweetened drinks) until you have reached your desired body fat %. Once you change your exercise and diet routine, you will realize that the so-called "fat switch" is nothing more than the inevitable result of all the choices you make. Make the right choices, and the vast majority of people will be lean and muscular; make the wrong choices - and even the best genes will not help you. Your only problem is that you've been making the wrong choices while convinced that they are the right ones. Switch the choices to off the fat switch!

I hope that neither you nor others in your situation will find this post offensive or condescending. I and the few other voices you will hear echoing my comments don't claim to be smarter or better than you, but by virtue of luck or experiment, we found the path to strength and health. It isn't rocket science. Here is some recommended reading to get you thinking:

The last link includes comments worth reading, including one from someone who started out in your situation and eventually found his way out of the fat maze. Be Strong!

It never fails to amaze me how the "tolerant" fail to see their own INtolerance

Master switch eh?

Well here's the Master Plan:

Eat healthier, and in less quantities. It's not that hard.

And regular exercise tends to fit in pretty nicely with that plan.

And to people complaining that it's too hard, it's not even hard. It's just a lack of willpower. All you need is some motivation.

I honestly believe that if any person on this earth puts their mind to it, they can accomplish anything.

Just take for example that guy Dustin Carter, he was born with no legs, and no hands...yet he went on to become one of his schools top WRESTLERS. He also didn't want help from his parents, he learned to adapt and do everything himself, including dressing himself, etc. Everything a normal person could do, he told himself he could do it.

Then there's Zach Anner, a guy with cerebral palsy, but where it would have taken many options out of the lives of those who have it, he didn't let that phase him and now has a successful travel show on Oprah's network.

Point being, excuses are excuses...being overweight is a problem that can be solved within months if you really put your mind to it. No matter how "obese" you are.

My Dad is a living example. He's 64 years old, and not 6 months ago he weighed nearly 300 pounds. He decided to do something about it and started slowly exercising (walking at first, then other activities), and cutting out junky foods completely...Well now my Dad weighs about 226 pounds and is in the best shape he's been in about 30 years. And the weight is still coming off.

My Father is a living tribute to what can be done if you commit yourself. (For I know weight is MUCH harder to get off as you age)

It just goes to show that with enough motivation and the right mindset, we can do anything.

Theotherguy,

Dare to argue your point. Now that is a challenge, and seeing that Dave already slapped the be-jesus out of you... I just have 1 small point to make to you that is gonna stomp a mudhole in you. You said that there are only 2 ways to get thin. First is lipo and the second was burn the fat off with your metabolism... since that is the bodies engine. Then you were kind enuff to rant on and give this huge process of how it all works. Well, let me ask you a question... Guy... what if your metabolism is broken? Huh? What if your metabolism works at a fraction of what it should because of side effects from other medications or just natural genetics? What does that mean? Well, a normal person goes to the gym and does a good work out and burns of 500 cals, but a person with a reduced metabolism might only burn 100 cals. They did the same thing as the other "normal" person, but the calories just didn't burn because the metabolism wouldn't turn all the way on.

Your example of Africa is idiotic for the simple reason that they don't have the food to put into their bodies to hoard, and the food that get don't have fat in it... unless you think long grain rice and bottled water has fat content. Do us all a favor and stick to something that you ACTUALLY know, instead of wanting to take a cheap shot at larger people. For all we know, you look like Jabba the Hutt on your couch with a laptop, and you are taking the shot due to self loathing.

Optomyst said, "Sure we could turn it off......................get rid of fast food restaurants, pre-packaged foods and chemical additives."

Didn't you read the article? Obesity is a health disorder that involves a person's basic genes.

Your comment was uninformed and more than a little rude.

How can you stand yourself?

Isn't it amazing how the prepubescents always come out in droves, to condemn those that don't fit where they deem "normal"?

Has any of you loud mouth ignoramuses ever had a mother or father or uncle/aunt, grandma/grandpa who was overweight? Do/did you hate them, too?
I bet you didn't spew these nasty comments to their faces though, did you?

It's easy to demean people you don't know in front of a computer screen, because you know those people can't see you.
Some of you lip flappers are probably overweight too, and find the only way you can actually pass off your own embarrassment, is to spit venom at others.

I hope they HAVE, in fact, tapped into something that will help those people who have struggled with weight. They deserve to have a helping hand, instead of being the victims of stone throwers.

Cheers to those of you who ARE the stone throwers! Here's hoping you get to taste your own venom one day!

Oh wait! Was that un-Christian of me?
An eye for an eye, saith the Bible...

Exodus 21:24 - eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot;
Exodus 21:23-25 (in Context) Exodus 21 (Whole Chapter)

Leviticus 24:20 - fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured.
Leviticus 24:19-21 (in Context) Leviticus 24 (Whole Chapter)

Deuteronomy 19:21- Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Deuteronomy 19:20-22 (in Context) Deuteronomy 19 (Whole Chapter)

Matthew 5:38 - [ An Eye for an Eye ] "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'
Matthew 5:37-39 (in Context) Matthew 5 (Whole Chapter)

**waits for haters of "Bible thumpers" to pounce**
Oh, never mind...I have more important things to do. Have a great day! :)

Twocents,

Just that easy, huh? Tell you what, Sparky. Let me tell you a little story since you seem to get so much from them. Coming out of college, I weighed about 150... give or take a pound. I rode my bike 24 miles a day to work and back and I ate just 1 full meal a day. If I snacked on anything else, it was a rare thing. Yet, for the next 10 years, I gained around 15 pounds each year, no matter what I did. I have a massive amount of willpower and I STILL eat a single meal a day, but my weight no longer goes up. Would you like to know why?

After 10 years of frustration, in general and with doctors, I finally found a doctor that would finally take me off of a medication that I thought was giving me this "effect". As soon as I came off the drug, I dropped 30 pounds in the next 45 days. Unfortunately, I had to go thru a bunch of meds til I found one that worked and the one that I'm stuck on doesn't appear to be condusive to weight loss like the initial one that I had when I first came off.

So... if you are going to swing that self-righteous paint brush of yours, and make assumptions without knowing a damn thing about the subject other than what you take from talk shows (obviously Oprah) and hack news articles, expect a few people snap at you.

As for your dad, pat him on the back for me. Anyone that can drop that kind of weight needs a little reinforcement, but dropping that much so fast... not good for certain organs.

One day you go to the doctor and he puts you on medication.

10 years, 150 lbs. and several doctors later, you realize that the medication is the cause for the weight loss?

Apologies for your situation, and if I came off as disrespectful, I only meant to inspire.

Also, I discounted medication and other similar variables, I know first hand the effects they can have. I was put on a pill to help with my AD/HD and it in turn caused me to gain 30 pounds in a year. Like you, once removed from it, I have since lost the weight due to the healthy eating and exercise.

The target of my post above were the people who just quit without even putting forth an effort. Those who just say "I can't do it." or "Why bother? It's genetic or something, so I'll never change." etc. That's what I meant by no excuses.

But thank you for my Father, I'll let him know. And don't worry, he's in perfectly fine health, he in fact just got a physical a week ago and the doctor said he was doing just fine. haha

Oh and p.s. I don't watch Oprah, Zach was pretty big in the news not to long ago. He was incredibly charismatic and inspiring considering what he was born with, so that's why he came to mind when I wrote this.

Hope all is well with you now that your medication situation is dealt with.

To those who think that all "fat people" are lazy and overeat, let me tell you a story. I was thin as a teeneager (doctors told me I needed to gain weight). In my late teens, I started gaining weight. This consequently was around the time I started developing "female problems". I had a hysterectomy at the age of 25, along with a pre-cancerous condition, I had polycystic ovarian syndrome (Look it up). My weight has continued to increase. Drastic diets and extreme exercise programs (less than 1000 calories and 3 hours of aerobic and anaerobic exercise daily) produced only minimal and short lived results. I suffered a heart attack at the age of 37 due to Prinzmetal Angina (also look it up - not related to obesity). I am now 43 years old and heavier than I have ever been at 265#. I work out 1 1/2 hours each day and consume about 1200 calories a day in 6 divided meals with as much of them coming from organic sources as possible (garden grown vegetables, farm fresh meats, etc). At restuarants, I opt for either a salad or I order the smallest meal available and eat about half of it. In the last 4 months, I have managed to lose a whopping 8 lbs.

I will agree with you that there are those who are sedentary over-eaters and they are overweight as a result of that but you cannot paint all "fat people" with the same broad brush. There are medications that have been proven to cause weight-gain. There are medical conditions that have been proven to cause weight gain. There are also medications and medical conditions that inhibit the ability to lose weight. Please research the issue before you judge, as that is the essence of the definition of prejudice (a preformed opinion, usually an unfavorable one, based on insufficient knowledge, irrational feelings, or inaccurate sterotypes).

Longhair, I don't know if you have ever had to deal with "specialists before in the medical field, but they are... for the most part... extremely arrogant. I believe that they think ALL of their patients are ignorant about their situation, even after the doctor explains it to them, so when one of them suddenly tells them that a medication that they prescribed is doing something. They take offense to the insinuation and quickly jump on the band wagon of a third of the people on this board. You're eating wrong... you're not exercizing enuff... not this... not that. The thing is that it is NEVER them. Trust me, it took me 4 years to figure out that a medication was causing my problem, and it took another 6 to find a friggin doctor that would listen to me explain to them about MY body.

For all you docs out there. I have one simple request for you. Listen to your patients. If they think it might be something and you think there is even the SLIGHTEST shot of them being right, look it up on the internet. Don't go back to some ancient books that aren't kept up to date as much as they should be. Don't make the patient do your job, find the info online, print it off, and then bring it in and jam it in your hand. Not all of us are like our parents and blindly listen to doctors anymore.

I almost had to stop reading after the first sentence claimed there are genes in fat. Clearly someone didn't pass highschool biology. Anyhow, we've known about gene promoters, regulators, operons, and cell signaling for decades. It still comes down to what everyone above is saying...just eat what's right for you, and exercise the amount of time that's right for you, and you can stay on your target weight.

And the idiots come out of the woodworks as anticipated. You all realize that your arguments end with a 300 point fat starving guy in Africa? No matter what you point the finger to, or which facts you try to ignore / obsess on, in the end the fat has to get in someway. You body doesn't randomly suck fat in through some as-yet-unknown trans-dimensional hole, it gets it from the food you put through your mouth. The #1 source of fat isn't candy, chocolate, or greesy burgers so please dispel those beliefs. Carbohydrates are what get turned into fat, namely breads, rice, pasta and any starchy food. Their pure biological energy, your body process's them and then does one of two things, it either burns them immediately (if there is a need) or it stores them inside fat cells for future use. That is all there is to it, it ~is~ that freaking simple. No amount of vodoo is needed.

And before another of you fat fcks opens your traps, I ~WAS~ that guy. I had issues with my weight on top of being a sugar addict. The very first thing you do is learn to control energy input, ultimately it means calorie counting. Second is learning to control energy output, meaning stop sitting down all the time, try standing and walking and walking some more. Not just "exercise" in the gym then go home and plop your a$$ down on the couch. Control your total calorie output during the day such that it is in excess of your calorie input. This is where dieters screw up, they reduce energy input but immediately reduce energy output, ultimately doing nothing for their weight.

To prove this point, although its going over ya'lls head. 1 pound of fat is approx 4000 calories. If your daily energy input is 2000 calories (a balanced diet) and your daily energy putout is 1800 calories (office job is 1500~1800 usually) that gives you a positive 200 calorie balance. At that 200 calorie a day net balance you will gain 1 pound of fat per 20 days or about 18.25 pounds of fat per year. After two to four years your going to be carrying around quite a bit of "extra" weight. This is exactly how people gain weight as they get older, their energy intake remains the same but their energy output slowly declines and they start putting on the pounds. Only way out is to either reduce energy intake while maintaining the same energy output, or increase energy output.

But no, people dont' want to accept this basic fact of life. They want to blame their mother, their sister, their friends, their school, the TV, McDonalds, their work, and ultimately everyone ~not~ themselves. Stop the blaming, ultimately your the only one responsible for your weight. Some things about your biology make it harder or easier to lose weight, its not fair, but life isn't fair. It means you must work harder then others to maintain a lower weight, but you must do it anyway. Blaming other people only makes it worse.

zflynn had this to say:

Obesity is simple math: too many calories + not enough exercise = fatter + fatter.

And theotherguy had this to say:

You all realize that your arguments end with a 300 point fat starving guy in Africa?

Okay, I will take both of you on because your arguments neatly undercut one another. One's arguments do not end with the 300-pound starving guy in Africa--yes, anyone can literally starve themselves thin. However, take that "starving" guy in Africa and give him exactly the same number of calories as a person who never was starving--and the person in Africa will gain much more weight (well, presuming the calories are introduced slowly at first so that he doesn't get a shock to his system). In fact, once the "starving" person gets back on food, that person will put on a tremendous amount of weight. Quickly.

People's bodies are not identical machines that burn exactly the same number of calories with exactly the same activity--once a person has be subjected to starvation, that person's body permanently changes to store more food as fat in order to protect that person from the next round of starvation. The same thing is true of women who have children--once a woman begins to bear children, her body changes to store food as fat because the fat can be accessed during times of famine to keep the body alive. This is simple scientific fact that you can look up if you want to.

Similarly, a person who has insulin resistance will store nearly all food consumed as fat. The person can be simultaneously fat and malnourished because the body does not process food correctly. This is why a person who has bariatric surgery--which appears to reset the body's mechanisms--will suddenly not be diabetic any more and also will be able to lose weight.

A person who has a job which requires that person to sit for 8-10 hours at a stretch (and many of us have such jobs because we are a little brighter than you are) absolutely cannot compensate for that forced inactivity by either a healthy diet or additional recreational exercise. Again, look it up.

Oh, sure--you could flatly stop eating. You could eat a handful of rice every other day like a Tibetan monk. You could be really thin--and you can also completely destroy your body and die very young from malnutrition. Most of us, however, prefer to eat a fairly healthy diet even if it means that we are not aesthetically pleasing to people who spit out idiotic equations like zflynn.

The amount of daily activity (not "exercise"--but simple activity) that one gets is largely dictated by one's job. The amount of fat that one's body stores is largely determined by genetics, but also affected by environmental things like "famine" and medication and quality of food. Even something simple like consuming too much corn (and corn is in virtually all foods these days--in one form or another) not to mention consuming the growth enhancers in meat and dairy can lead to obesity. Heck, drinking liquids out of plastics can lead to obesity.

Doctors do not understand what causes obesity. That is why they are extremely surprised that bariatric surgery essentially cures diabetes. They do know, however, that starvation diets will not merely lead to health problems in the short term, but will lead to obesity in the long term unless one can stay on that starvation diet until it leads to death.

So--the adolescents who are posting on this particular thread should simply quit. Yes--an adolescent can eat pizza and drink soda and stay thin. The women at the next table who has had a child will eat a salad and be overweight. Adolescents have quick metabolisms and can digest virtually anything without it turning to fat. A person who has a job that keeps him/her sedentary for 8 hours a day can digest virtually nothing because his/her metabolism has reset itself. Obesity is NOT a matter of calories in and "exercise"--if this were true, my dears, I would suggest that people would have a lot more success when they decrease calories and add a half hour of exercise a day to their daily activities--but they don't. That works for precisely 20% of the population. Have a great day.

Again your making things up and ignoring physics. "Fat" as we call it is nothing more then stored glucose suspended in water. That glucose must get into the body somehow, it doesn't magically arrive through a black hole. The largest source of this glucose is pasty / breads / rice / starch's, you know things that we're constantly told are healthy for us and part of a balanced diet. You can strip out all the candy / soda's / junk food and eat a strict diet of only pasta / rice / bread and still get fat, very fat if you don't watch it. Potatoes are particularly high in carbohydrates, starch is the plant version of our own fat cells, your literally eating plant fat. One pound of fat is between 3500 and 4000 calories depending on how hydrated your body is. Or in other words, one pound of stored glucose is equal to 3500~ 4000 calories of biological energy. That fat comes out in two ways, first is metabolism where the body removes the glucose from the fat storage cell and converts it to ATP to be used in muscular energy, it also removes some water with the glucose molecules. The second way is through artificial removal, either liposuction or through various medicines, mostly of East Asian origin. Once removed its gone forever, the physical glucose has been removed and thrown away.

To put on fat weight your body MUST store glucose, that is a fact that can not be argued or debated. Everything not stored glucose is known as lean body mass (LMB), basically muscle / bone / organs / skin / connective tissue. If you want to remove the stored glucose you must follow one of the methods outlines above. Burn it off or dispose of it, no other way.

Medicine CAN NOT CAUSE YOU TO GAIN WEIGHT. I'm so tired of people misunderstanding how that works. A 500mg pill does not make 40kg magically appear inside your body. What is happening is the pill is messing with either your appetite (energy input), or messing with your desire to move around (energy output). Many medications are known to do these things, you feel tired or less motivated to move (ADHD medication) and your energy output goes down, you didn't pair down your diet accordingly and thus you establish a positive energy balance.

Lets do the math again, but this time lets use a very small nearly insignificant positive energy balance. 50 calories, less then a single candy bar or bag of chips, or 1/4th a can of soda. Intake 1850 calories, after all your trying to watch your weight and diet. output 1800 calories at a moderately active office job or being a student. 50 calories a day averaged over 365 days is 18250 calories, 4.5 to 5.2 pounds of stored glucose. That is so small that you'd never notice gaining it over a year, so lets see what happens over three or four years. 13.6 to 15.6 pounds extra over three years, those pants are getting a bit tight now, can't quite fit into that dress from prom. Over six years we get 27.3 to 31.2, now we definitely need new clothing and its showing. Now in order to get back to that college weight you'd have to lose 109,500 calories worth of weight. That is not something your going to be able to do in a few months, or even a year, not without some seriously radical life style changes. That is the result of six years at +50 calories a day, or one soda every four days.

And it gets worse, see people don't understand the role the other non-glucose sugars play in this. Sucrose, Dextrose, Fructose, even the much maligned (wrongly so) high-fructose corn syrup. The funny thing about the human body is that while its very good at storing glucose its absolutely horrible at storing fructose / sucrose / dextrose. We're talking in the 25% efficiency region (three molecules used to convert one molecule to glucose). So what your body does is burn off these sugars first and foremost ~then~ it goes about extracting and processing glucose from fat cells. Every 200 calories of sucrose you eat is 200 calories of glucose your not going to use. The flip side of this is that you can eat large amounts of non-glucose sugar and not get fat at all, provided you didn't eat much glucose to begin with. Your gonna be wired as all get out, hyper and irritable, but you won't really put on weight. You do this while eating breads / rice / pasta / starches and you'll balloon up in no time.

You shouldn't starve yourself, all that will do is decrease your body's energy output and thus defeats the purpose. What you ~need~ to do is control your energy input vs output in such a way that you have a negative energy balance. I will demonstrate, lets take the same moderately active office worker at 1800 calories a day output and they decide to lose some weight. Now they go on a "diet" but its a sensible one composed of leafy vegetables, a little meat and moderated on the carbohydrates. 1500 calories a day is pretty easy to do if you don't snack and eat reasonably. 1800-1500 = 300 negative balance averaged (do not cheat), do this for 90 days. That is 27,000 calories or 6.75 to 7.7 pounds, haha don't you feel cheated. All that watching and you only lose 6~7 pounds after three whole months, fck this diet (goes and splurges and ruins a months worth of work). Now lets be patient and maintain this over a year all 365 days. 109,500 calories or 27.3 to 31.2 pounds. Praise Jesus you can wear that prom dress again or those older outfits.

Now the truth comes out, losing weight is about time and a permanent life style change. You ~MUST~ control energy in vs energy out, no other way around it. Your body's natural controls are rigged to favor energy input and for a good reason, more energy means you live longer during the next ice age or when you go for a whole week before you can kill another deer. A human can go a long long time without food, its gonna suck, your gonna feel bad and absolutely hate life, your instincts are going to drive you to eat any and everything around you, but you won't die until you've depleted your entire glucose reserve. I don't recommend this method, its not healthy and very bad for your body, but it proves a point that weight is entirely withing a person's control.

See something very interesting happens when you eat till your stomach is slightly distended (that full feeling you get after eating). A region in the instinctual area of your brain activates and releases dopamine into your blood stream. Its a low level reward mechanism designed to reward you for over-eating and thus ensuring your survival over the next week until you can hunt again. Successive activations of this area creates an addictive relationship that associated food intake with a positive reward mechanism. Basically the person becomes addicted to a full stomach, not the act of eating the food but the results of that act. But as the stomach stretches it requires larger and larger amounts of food before that mechanism activates again. Its like a crack dealer that offers you the drugs for free but then gradually ups the cost over time as you become more and more addicted. Thankfully this is a relatively (vs crack, nicotine and ethanol hydride) minor addiction, it can be overcome but it'll take time and effort.

So anyone else wish to try to argue that glucose magically appears inside your body without you having any control over it? I'd really like to see those fat starving people in Africa already. Wouldn't that be the ultimate source of renewable energy. Just line up 1000 tred mills hooked to a generator and get 1000 "poor overweight" people on them. They could just run for 8 hours a day before switching shifts with the next 1000 and never run out of energy. It would provide an infinite amount of sustainable energy since those biological energy batteries never run down.

we used to get in trouble if we didn;t eat everything on the plate as kids.

I've never understood this. There was so much abusive parenting that went unchallenged for so long. I am so thankful for my parents who not only never hit us, but told us to stop eating when we felt full. Period. We never had enough junk food in the house for over indulging on it to be an issue.

1. Reported for name calling.

2. Forcing a child, under the threat of being beaten or punished in some way, to continue eating when they are totally stuffed, is a form of abuse.

we used to get in trouble if we didn;t eat everything on the plate as kids...so this carries over into adulthood.

This is a huge factor in obesity (pun not intended). When I was a child, I was not allowed to leave the table until my plate was cleaned. Even now, at almost 30 years old, I still have trouble telling myself that I don't have to force everything down if I'm not hungry. It's very difficult to change a behavior that's been (literally) shoved down your throat your whole life.

Children are able to tell when they've had enough to eat. Forcing your kids to override those signals because there's still food on the plate is setting them up for obesity and eating disorders. Don't force your kids to clean their plates, and don't make them feel bad if they can't. We need to listen to our bodies.

There was so much abusive parenting that went unchallenged for so long.

1devon - where do you make a connection between beating a child and forcing him to eat?

I was raised to finish everything on my plate, but my parents never threatened to beat me if I didn't. You are probably under the age of 30 and have no understanding or compassion for people who were raised during the Great Depression, when so many people could not put food on the table for their families. My father could not stand corn bread during all his adult life because it reminded him of his childhood when that was often all they could afford for dinner.

I regret the fact that my parents raised me to clean my plate because it does create challenges to me when, as an adult, I automatically revert back to that training and have to remind myself that restaurants overload our plates and therefore, I should take half of it home for another meal. However, I realize that my parents thought that they were doing what is best and that they were not inherently evil because they were training us not to be wasteful with our food. Cleaning our plates did not involve overeating because our parents gave us portions that were appropriate for children our age. Cleaning one's plate is also a way of expecting children to try new foods that they have never had.

I agree. In addition, eating in America is considered a pit-stop maintenance activity, not much higher in the scheme of things than using the john. As a result of American culture food is made to be convenient to serve, convenient to wolf down quickly and high in energy content. A good description of it is party food for work slaves.

Megidolaon,

I was raised the same way, unfortunately, but I have always been fairly thin. The thing I disliked as I got older was that feeling of being full. I don't like it.

When I was traveling in Europe I learned the most fantastic little bit of information. Stop eating when the taste of the food changes. And it's true. At your next meal pay attention to how the food tastes. First it's delicious and after a little while the taste changes to something other than delicious. Stop eating at that point. Your body has had enough.

I too was raised to clean the plate - literally. Not a grain of rice or drop of gravy could remain. But I was also raised by a man who was affected by his difficult past. My father was changed for life by the experience of eating steak in the mess halls in Korea and then noticing the local children fighting over the garbage scraps. In his opinion he was viewing a life and death struggle. He then went on to travel through Russia and Africa via his trusty Vespa. He stopped to experience all the locales he traveled through. We lived in Africa for part of my childhood. The, "There are starving children in Africa" mantra was real to him. He simply could not tolerate the waste of food. Please let's not call the sincere mistakes of parents "abuse." Lord knows we all make them.

My father was raised by an incredibly violent alcoholic - he joined the army to get away from the violence in his home. He was incredibly disciplined with alcohol. He HAD to be in control of what went in to his body, or risk turning into his personal demon, and by extension he had to control what went in to his kids' bodies. Making us clean our plates was not great parenting. Not turning in to an alcoholic was. So I was chubby until I was allowed to dish up for myself in high school. And it's hard for me to not finish those darn huge restaurant portions. But at least I understand where this comes from. If a parent who still makes his or her children clean the plate needs correction, can you imagine the harm you could do if you packaged that correction in the form of a child abuse charge?

Once again, better living through chemistry.

re: eating everything on my plate - I too grew up with a variation of that rule. My parents were teaching me not to waste so the rule was... You eat everything "YOU PUT ON" your plate. Don't take more than you're going to eat - Don't Waste!

Let's not blame our parents by changing history. Take responsibility for what you put in you pie hole :)

Yea and in All you can eat dives you feel like you have to get your money's worth. 9.95 for the meal and 60.00 for the diet pills and never mind the new clothes etc. Face it we live to eat, and everything we see advertised is aimed at satiating our eyes not our stomachs.

Big, hope grabbing title! Is this something we can believe in? Do the researchers know enough to give real substance to the title? I sure hope so! If they do find a healthy way to flip this switch, will the middle and lower economic classes be able to afford the flip? I hope so! I hope this is genuine rather than speculative sensationalism. I hope! I do, so much hope.

When I was told to eat everything on my plate it was only because I tended to leave the green beans and other vegetables behind. It was my parent's (maybe misguided) attempt to get me to eat a balanced meal. Is that "abuse"?

There were always stupid parents, who just made the child eat everything on their plates when what was on their plate was nothing but Hamburger Helper. This I would consider abusive.

Actually while many of you out there, had wonderful parents who were making kind hearted misguided mistakes, there are people like me out there who had terribly abusive and violent parents. My mother would make me sit at the dinner table for hours until I cleaned my plate off and if I did not I was subject to not discipline (like a few wacks aka "spankings") I was severely beaten and sent to spend more late night hours in a corner when I should have been sleeping or doing homework... This continued for years. From the age of 6 to 17 my mother beat me, bit my face, push me down, pulled my hair, slapped me, punched me, beat me until I was motionless on our bathroom floor besides the toilet. Verbal and emotional abused me as well...

So don't defend those parents out there who took it to the extreme, and excuse them by saying they meant well...

I personally do not believe in spanking or physical discipline; I think it's a form of intimation-bullying.

I'm sorry you had to go through that deadellabllezza! No one should ever be hit and I do mean NEVER!

Replied to wrong comment

I was also told to eat everything on my plate, but most restaurants either give big portions or they loose business. This is especially true of the mid and lower level eateries. This higher end restaurants can give correct portions, because people go to them for the quality of the food and the ambiance. So, you can't blame the restaurants. It's really the customers that are driving portion size. Unfortunately, how many customers are going to tell the waiter to tell the cook to put less food on their plate. They'll just take the extra home in a "doggie bag," stick it in the fridge and then toss it out a week later when its moldy.

1devon,

Wow... Did you really report him for "name calling?" I hope it made you feel better.

I personally do not believe in spanking or physical discipline; I think it's a form of intimation-bullying.

I agree. What you described is what a lot of kids I knew faced if heaven forbid they felt full. So they learned to ignore their body, and did end up with massive weight issues as they aged. My parents, thankfully, felt anyone who would ever hit a child,and I mean EVER.... had no honor. There was no physical abuse in our house - nor were we made to stuff ourselves.

Yeah, Wanker, it felt good. He didn't even attempt to reply in an articulate way, or add anything to the conversation. He just went straight for the name calling.

How is it that a kid can not finish everytihing on his/her plate because they are full, yet have enough room for cookies, cake ice cream, etc?. I had to finish what my mom put on my plate put the portion was a size that she new I could handle. If as an adult, you don't know how to stop when your full and get a to-go container, then THAT is your fault and your responsibility!

What Devon1 and the others who consider "cleaning your plate" as child abuse....

I have no idea how much food you put on your children's plates, but there was never enough on our children's plates to make them "STUFFED". We knew a child couldn't eat as much as an adult, and we fixed their portions accordingly.

And trust me when I say that, after a day of running around outside, my kids were HUNGRY.

Child abuse? I don't think my grandparents ever abused me by telling me to clean my plate. For that matter I don't think they abused me when they put soap in my mouth for swearing, forced me to go outside to play when I was visiting them, or that fateful day when I had to go pick my switch for my spanking because I smashed out a garage window because I thought it would look cool. I know what child abuse is. My mother did it to me every day that I was in her house until I left at the age of 12 to go into foster care. I am not going into details but I have the scars, both mental and physical that says I know what child abuse is. You people that scream child abuse probably have never had a belt buckle to the face like I have. I would suggest that you don't take someone's word for what child abuse is that has never experienced real child abuse.

Pepster thank you for your empathy.

Now I do agree that is you're too "full" to finish your dinner off then no treats afterwards. However, what I experienced was more or less abusive control, I could have cared less for sweets; and many times I had a tummy ache after dinner because I had eaten far too much in order to please my mother. It got to the point were I would pretend I would need to use the restroom and spit whatever food in my mouth out into the toilet or make myself throw up... I distantly remember hating spinach very much ( I would eat corn, broccoli, peas, green beans so I was not an unreasonable child) and my mother knew this and instead of making some of the veggies I liked she would force me to eat something my taste buds did not agree with (which again was a way to dominate and control me). For a very long time I hated dinner as a result.

And to be quite clear in order to "cure" picky eating; you do not force a child to "clean their plate", you simple take whatever is left over put it in a container for later and continue to serve what the did not eat at that meal. Kids aren't dumb, they won't let themselves starve, they will eventually eat their food.

Bob b- while I do not know what you personally went through, but you should not try to discredit others who have been in your situation as well. I know what child abuse is, I spend my entire childhood very afraid of my mother, I still shake whenever I hear people raising their voices, I still instinctively cover my face or pull back when in a disagreement with someone. You're not the only person in the world who has suffered appallingly. And trust me it doesn't take a belt buckle to the face to have the market cornered on chid abuse. Try having your mother pull a area rug out from out you because you weren't moving off of it fast enough and not only landing hard on your back and hitting your head, but having your skull cracked open and having to go to the ER.

dead I understand going through that is child abuse but when I read on here people saying "cleaning their plates" is child abuse that really riles me up. We have gone from a country where spankings were fine (which I still feel they are as long as you don't do it angry because your buttocks are extremely well cushioned) and a bar of soap in the mouth when you mouthed off was ok to "Think of the children punishing your children is wrong!" and I have watched as kids now "know" what is best and ignore everyone and do whatever they feel like with consequences be danged.

I have children of my own now and it scares me to death that my anger issues could be taken out on them. I have gotten angry and gone outside and come back in with my hands bleeding from beating a tree but I refuse to punish my children while I am angry because I know that is where the problem lies.

Back on topic I will say portion control and making sure they eat healthy food helps and so does forcing them to go outside and play instead of relying on the television and the video games to parent is a much better choice. However I will not say that someone is abusing their children if they would rather let their kids play video games and watch t.v. I may not agree with how they are raising them and I may make suggestions but it isn't my place to tell someone they are abusing their children when there is a huge difference between actual physical and mental abuse and having your kids do something that might not be the most healthy.

The problem in the United States is not portion control or restaurants serving up large meals... it is accepting personal responsibility. We have let the far left run rampant far too long telling everyone it is ok to blame everyone else for the things we should be responsible for. Yes, you get a large meal when you go out to most places. Eat what is comfortable, take the rest home. Get your money's worth. On one of the popular food rating sites, Chipotle scores a "D" only on the premise that their burritos are too large. Seriously?? Their ingredients and quality are superb. I turn one burrito into two meals. A chicken burrito with no sour cream, but with cheese, beans and salsa is about 900 calories. Guess what, that is two 450 calorie meals, perfect for what should be 2 of 5 daily smaller portioned meals. Everything we do we have a choice in, and it is up to each indvidual and only them to make their own choices. Stop the blame game and grow up USA.

Let me get this straight...some of you are actually blaming your adulthood weight problems on 'abusive' parents who made you eat your food when you were kiddies?!?! This is super really easy simple...you're all growns up now, so stop eating everything on your plate and change your habits developed way back when you were so horribly, horribly abused by being made to eat.

I wish there was one of those poor starving kids from those crazy Sally Struthers (sp?) infomercials on here who could laugh at you people complaining about being fed too much as a child and now...boo hoo...suffering for it.

I never had parents who force fed me as if I were a duck being prepared for froie gras, and I have no weight issues as an adult. Many here seem to be saying that they were indeed beaten for being full or *gasp* not liking a certain food, or they *DO* have issues with listening to their body when it's saying enough.

I have gotten angry and gone outside and come back in with my hands bleeding from beating a tree but I refuse to punish my children while I am angry because I know that is where the problem lies.

I can't even imagine anything a child could do that would make a stable adult behave like this. My GOD. It sounds like you are very much continuing the pattern. When inflicting pain is the only way you 'discipline' your child, the degree of pain is simply semantics.

Discipline should be about teaching and guiding. Consequences, when necessary, should never be physical torture. And being full should not warrant a physical assault, yet that's what many parents, to this day, still do.

Stmiller- First and foremost, I am not overweight, I do not have an eating disorder, and I love to workout; for me it's the only "me" time and stress reliever I get. I am not blaming abusive parents for eating issues and obesity; you obviously cannot read and look far too much into things. You are a complete moron. I was simply responding to the comment of parents who abuse and resort to controlling their child through normal everyday things; such as the intake of food.

However, since you brought it up Stmiller, I will enlighten you;
It is true we do learn patterns and behaviors from our parents and how they choose to rear us. We do learn by example and mimic those who are in our lives. I have family who are dangerously obese and led their children into being obese at a young age which continued into adolescent years and into adulthood for them. Fortunately, one has decided to turn his live around and drop the weight; reclaiming his life and body. So what can be possibly concluded is that if parents are not careful and make a healthy example out of themselves, or careful as to how much is eaten and exactly what is eaten by their children they could indirectly be leading the way to childhood obesity which could continue on into adulthood. Let's be honest here, when something is so hardwired in you from a young age it is hard to break those habits and not everyone has strong will power and self control.

Bob b- I applaud you for having self control, not many people who've been in shoes similar to ours have the ability to take a minute to think and then act.... Well many people today what to rear their kids without spanking them, I don't think it's personally a bad idea (and yes it has a lot to do with my own personal background)... There are pros and cons to spanking and not spanking. What you're probably seeing is parents who aren't consistent and don't have clear expectations set for their children. I do agree there seems to be a trend of kids without discipline who run around like wild banshees and show no manners... It goes back to the parenting though, but I don't think spankings are necessarily the answer... I know with my son, I strive for a bond full of mutual trust and respect; I don't feel he is my possession and I can impose whatever I wish (like my mother) on him, and I strive to be very involved in his life. Granted his only 6mths right now, but I know how I want and choose to parent is never going to change. And I think really all it is is people wanting to evolve and use a form of punishment that isn't violent or degrading. I mean we used to use certain say medication that contained ingredients that turned out to be not so good for you or deadly; people just didn't know any better until things started to happen and they weren't exactly getting the results that wanted... I believe the same can go for parenting; there's always room for improvement.

deadellabellezza - Did I address you in my comments? No. Yet here you are resorting to name calling because someone's opinion does match yours.

In reference to my point...it is perfectly valid to suggest the silliness of blaming parent's for installing bad habits then saying..."not all people have the self-control". At some point, as you admit, it is not the parent's fault anymore, but the individual's own fault of not having the self-control. An adult is responsible for their actions regardless of when and how they picked up the 'habit'.

Dead, I applaud you for wanting to break the cycle. I have three children who were never once hit. They were 'disciplined', but not tortured. My husband and I were both raised in homes without violence. My kids are grown, educated, working and most importantly..KIND. The kind of people who would never hurt the defenseless.

When you discipline by teaching and guiding, you rarely have to punish. People will tell you over and over that if a child is not physically hit and hurt , they aren't 'disciplined'. I speak for abused children and I've listened to one pathetic adult after the other describe why they needed to hurt kids. What they are is bullies. You hit the nail on the head. Anyone can beat on a child. I find the obsession many have with kids butts more than just a little disturbing. Parenting, leading by example, takes a lot more work than inflicting pain and terrorizing someone smaller.

You forgot the "DIET COKE."

You forgot the "DIET COKE."

Yuck.

That would be a KLF14 Coke: tastes great, not filling. Remember Olestra?

Olestra = anal leakage. Love those side effects!

Olestra comercial disclaimer......"May cause uncontrollable oily discharge".

OMG, I remember Olestra. That was a disaster. I bought on vending machine sized bag of potato chips when that came out. After I ate just a few, I noticed a strange aftertaste. Just didn't taste "right" at all so I threw it in the trash. In half an hour, I had to bolt to the restroom. Awful.

I am boycotting all products that contain high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, partially hydrogenated fat, and bleached or brominated flour. Bromine and chlorine are halogens which compete with iodine and interfere with the thyroid's uptake of iodine. Iodine is important for making sure the THYROID (which regulates the metabolism) works properly. Make sure your multivitamin has at least 150 micrograms in it.

HFCS and PHF as the PSAs about them say, are "fine in moderation", but there is no such thing as moderation because they sneak them into EVERYTHING. Read the labels on your favorite packaged foods and you will see what I'm talking about. Even things you would never suspect like Starburst fruit chews have partially hydrogenated fat in them.

Aspartame has been known to cause all kinds of health problems and contains a lot of sodium, causing water weight gain, even though it's "diet".

As consumers we would be wise to take some responsibility for eating properly, rather than continuing to eat crap and expecting a pill that has nasty side effects to bail us out.

Hahaha, the kids and I still laugh over one possible side affect of Olestra, "Oily anal seepage."

Precisely my complaint with the whole BMI "industry" that's popped up over the last decade. It's a VERY inaccurate measure, at best. As you mention, I am 6' 0" tall (BMI says 140-184 lbs.) and I laugh every time some doctor or nutritionist states that I should be around 170. I weigh 200 lbs. and, yes, I'll admit to being 10-15 lbs overweight. But 170? I was 170 at one point in my late 20s. Everyone kept asking me: "Are you OK?", "Are you ill?", and the best one, "Do you have cancer?" At the beach, you could count my ribs from 30 feet away. The government and health care "professionals" can keep their BMI nonsense. Let's develop a realistic measurement tool.

"At the beach, you could count my ribs from 30 feet away."

The following should be read with a hard Austrian accent.

Dman….listen to me now and believe me later. You were born with that body, but I can help you with that build… There’s no need to go through life as a pencil neck geek who has sand kicked in his face every time he’s on the beach. If you follow my directions I can give you abs of steal with massive pecs…instead of those buggy whip arms and a chest like the inside of a spoon. Instead of being the little gurly man on the beach…you will be the man with all the hot chicks. Believe me…I can pump you up…!!!

I couldn't help it Dman...you left it wide open

We have grown use to seeing people who are over weight. We now see people who are a little over weight as being thin. Here is a yardstick for you. For a male give yourself 106 pounds for the first 5 feet and 6 pounds for every inch over that. That is your ideal weight. So at six feet your ideal body weight is 106 and 72 pounds for your extra foot of height. 178 pounds. Now your ideal weight range is 6 pounds on either side. 172 to 184 pounds. For a woman it is 100 pounds for the first 5 feet and 5 pounds for every inch after that equals ideal body wt. Five pounds either side of that is the ideal wt. range.

Richard...have to say that scale is off as well. I am 5'6 and weigh 160 pounds...I was 160 when I left bootcamp in 1985, that was gaining 10 pounds which I attribute to muscle gain, and that was considered normal by military standards. I retired out of the military in 2008 so add 24 years of being at that same weight. I had a full physical a month ago and the doctor said my weight was dead on for my age. My only ongoing issue which I have had for over 25 years is a low hemoglobin level which is consistent with family history and fairly normal in women...(low iron).

I couldn't hit 135 if I tried.

I know one quite well, me. I range between 150 and 155 depending and i'm just a hair under 6'0" tall. I am quite healthy, have a great solid, lean, muscular build. Generalizations will get you in trouble..

All generalizations are false (everyone knows that).

Can we consider our height when wearing 4" heels? Just wondering.
(Sorry...it was there.)

You're all wrong:

http://www.healthchecksystems.com/heightweightchart.htm

Google is your friend.

My 55 year old 6 foot husband at 157 looked like a skeleton with skin. At 190 he's a stud.

My 5'10 daughter at 150 looked like a stick child, no shape at all. At 170, she's gorgeous.

A lot depends on your frame, how your body is shaped. Not everyone looks good when they are LEAN.

That fable about a woman's weight being 100 plus 5lbs for every inch over 5' calculates a weight at the upper end of what her BMI should be.

A healthy, attractive 5'7" woman looks and feels best as 120-128lbs max. If at 130 you still have thunder thighs or a small muffin top, you need to exercise more and lose those extra pounds.

Slender, trim women and men look their best when they're fit and at the lower range of their calculated normal BMI. The rest of you claiming otherwise are just trying to justify unhealthy overweight or obesity.

Many Americans' new estimate of what is an "average" body type actually places people in the somewhat overweight range; it's not healthy or attractive.

I for one don't really care about your opinion ttmadison. So what if someone has a small muffin top when they are 2# over the desired weight. Could you get any more shallow?

Having lived in East Asia for over eight years now, I can agree with ttmadison and the others on "Westerners" being extremely overweight. Rationalizing your extra pounds as "the chart is wrong" is a very bad way to go about things, you can't possibly work on fixing a problem until you've identified it first. Now that being said, the height to weight chart is a bad way to measure bmi because it doesn't take into consideration that muscle is heavier then fat. Someone could be very well muscled and still over their bmi chart-wise, but an electrical measuring device will accurately measure the proper lbm and fat percentage. Its that LBM vs fat percentage that you should be the most concerned about, ideally you want 16~18% to have a healthy solid look to you. Less and you start looking like sports stars or models, go under 7% and your starting to look like Mr. Muscles from the magazines, and your gonna have serious pain issues.

Ultimately your health is in your hands, take account and work for a better life style. And FYI I'm 5'11" and 195lbs, I could stand to lose 20lbs and return to how I was during my early 20's.

@Lynn

Sorry to say but 11 Stone (160lbs) is definately overweight (only slightly, not trying to take a pop) for 5'6". I know plenty of women that are close to 5'10", around the same weight and are overweight

@Theotherguy1234

this is a much better example of how to do things. i had mine measured at 12% last time i had mine checked (apparently similar to what a boxer looks for i'm told, shame i don't have a boxers build though)

@ttmadison - In high school, I was 5'6" tall, weighed 130 lbs and had a body fat percentage of 14, which, for a female, is the very bottom of the healthy range, anything lower than that is considered unhealthy and the body no longer works properly. At that point in my life, I wore a size 5 dress and my friends were routinely asked by others if I had an eating disorder. You cannot put a blanket "healthy" weight on everyone based on their height for a couple reasons, 1. you have to consider the size of the build (BMI indexes are generally based on a small frame) and 2. you have to consider that muscle weighs more than fat.

I most certainly did not have a small muffin top or thunder thighs. I walked a mile each way to school every day, roller-bladed 5 miles every afternoon, spring through fall, swam for 2 hours every day Jan-May and intentionally scheduled my high school classes on oppisite sides of the building and on different floors every hour.

Now, 12 years after graduating, and having two kids, ideally, for my body to look healthy, my ideal weight is 155. Due to my bone structure, I will never wear less than a size 8.

What is hilarious about every one thinking Americans have begun to feel that they are simply justifying being healthy or whatever but are really getting bigger, Marilyn Monroe, who was, and still is, considered to be a bombshell and the ideal woman, wore a size 12.

I have to agree with those who say the age/height/gender calculation is way off.

My daughter is 5'4 and stays around 105 lbs, she doesn't have a muscular build and that weight looks good on her. I'm 5'4 with a muscular build, if I lose down to 115/120 lbs I look like I'm starving to death. I once went down to 105 and people thought I was dying. The normal weight calculations just don't work for most of us.

I am to... At just over 300lbs and having tried everything under the sun to attempt to lose weight I am game for ANYTHING!!!!

Me too!! I'll volunteer..

Here's how the fat gene thing works...if you're fat and your name is Gene then you should eat right and exercise for an extended period of time.....no more fat Gene.

Me too! I am definitely available! How can we volunteer?

me too!! I've tired so many things and can't lose weight... I cut out all sugar and drank only water and exercised for one hour 7days aweek for 6 months and did not lose one single pound. It's hard when you know people are talking about your size and YOU KNOW you don't sit around and stuff your face all day.

@media annoyed,

this means nothing, depending on your height/weight, how much you ate (no matter how much "sugars" you cut out) and how vigorously you exercised, if you weight about 180lbs and run 4 miles in an hour every day you will only burn a 700 calories,

i.e. 1 Carl's Jr. Vanilla Shake (710 cal) or MacDonalds Double bacon cheeseburger (740 cal).

4 MILES A DAY for the rest of your life just so you can eat one bacon cheeseburger

I happen to be one of the fortunate ones who have been able to eat whatever I want and not have a weight problem. I do sympathize with those who have to struggle with their weight. This makes me tend to believe that weight has very much to do with genetics. The men on both sides of my family were all thin so that tends to make me lean that way. I had a hard time getting into the military when I was 6'2" and 127lbs. I had the opposite problem, I couldn't put on weight. Over the years I stayed between 155 & 165 while being an OTR truck driver, but now that I'm over 50 I've gone up to 170 - 175. I still eat whatever I want and last time at the Dr. all was good.

I've always eaten until I felt full then stopped, that did cause some problems as a kid because I grew up in the "clean your plate" generation. Sometimes I'd be at the table for an hour or more, but usually ate pretty good because we played outside and rode bikes and were hungry at suppertime.

I don't want folks to think I'm gloating, I'm not. I know I'm fortunate and appreciate not having to watch everything I eat. I don't do health food and I'm a meat & potatoes guy. If I got put on a diet without fried food I'd starve to death. But I really do believe that an individual's weight is based on genetics and family history. I think being active as a kid helps to set your metabolism too.

I wish those struggling with weight all the luck in the world. I know it can be very difficult. I do not believe we should ban fast food, but I don't believe folks should live on it either. We most definitely do not need more government trying to protect us from ourselves, that's why they call it freedom. Freedom to make the choices in our lives that WE see fit and to live our lives as we please as long as we do not infringe on the rights of others to do the same. If there is any one thing we need to ban in this country, it's banning.

Unfortunately, if the switch is real, and a treatment is found, it will be ten to fifteen years before the govt. will allow it to be used. And the pill company that patents it will charge a bundle. It will be one of those $200.00 a pill jobs. insurance companies will try to get out of paying, saying obesity is due to " lifestyle", not medical. So then we'll have to wait another ten years or more for the law suits to work through the courts. At 62, I will be dust before help comes. I am 6 ft., and 195 lbs. Not obese, but with a buda belly. Would like to get rid of it, as 5 lbs. on the front puts 100 lbs. of pressure on the back.

Poor diet and sedentary activity is a major contributor to to *Type II* diabetes; NOT "always" the direct, and only, cause.

This major inaccuracy brings into question the validity of the rest of the commentor's message.

I know of at least a handful of my family and friends who have been diagnosed with Type II that were normal weight and did engage in healthy activity.

Media boxes the cause of Type 2 as being the result of poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. I did not have poor diet and sedentary life when I was diagnosed. I've just grown tired of the media's narrative that Type 2 is the result of being fat and lazy.

I've read articles where there are theories that Type 2 could be triggered by the same mechanism as Type 1 - virus/autoimmune disruption.

My ex was diagnosed about 5/6 years ago as Type II, he is a long distance runner and competes in 4/5 marathons a year, besides all the other 10-30k races. Obesity did not send him to Type II land. I was about 35 pounds overweight when I was diagnosed in 2001. I began working out Feb of 2006 15/20 minutes a day and within a year I was doing 1.5/2hrs a day covering 45-60 miles a week, also began eating better. Guess what I'm still a Type II. I am now 45 pound lighter with a BMI of 22.5. And by the way there is something called MONW (Metabolically Obese Normal Weight) go look it up.

SallySparrow, indeed, you are wrong with your belief that Type II Diabetes is always the result of overeating and a sedentary life style. Type II is the adult onset of diabetes and this disease doesn't always require insulin injections. Type I Diabetes, Juvenile Diabetes is always an insulin dependent disease.

Over the last 25 years restaurant portions have increased in size and many processed foods have had some form of sugar added. We're all accustomed to having too-large plates and too-large drinks.

It's a bad greed-driven habit created by the food industry and it's killing some of us.

Actually, Peridot, all of the endocrinologists in the area that I live in automatically put patients on some kind of medication for Tye II Diabetes. They will not let you try to control it through diet first. At least in my extended family, everyone that starts out with pills for Diabetes lands up on insulin. Their bodies either reject or the pills stop working.

One thing I have noticed over the years is the change in the Food Pyramid. When they changed it from the Circle to the Pyramid, they increased the number of grain portions by a huge amount. I know that it is supposed to be whole grains, not processed, white flour breads or white potatoes, but the Pyramid recommended 7 - 12 portions. Even with the change in the current one, there is still too many portions in the grain section. Carbohydrates are just as bad, if not worse, for a diabetic.

By the way, my parents had a friend who exercised every day and was trim. He died of a massive heart attack in his mid-50's.

We need some control over the "fat" sandwiches and other foods offered by fast food restaurants. Recent MSNBC articles have highlighted the fact that EVERY fast food chain has items on their menus that probably should not be fed to pigs unless you want to fatten them up quickly or cause them to have a heart attack.

This greed and profit motive needs to be controlled somehow. Readers should try the Whole Foods stores that offer in-store restaurant facilities. There are many items available to suit most any taste, and they are virtually 100% healthy. However, a word of caution is in order! The stuff may be delicious and very healthy, but it is NOT cheap! Hire a guard to accompany you if you eat there, but he will not be needed when you leave, as you will have no money left! If anyone can explain why these health foods are so expensive, it would benefit the entire nation!

There were no fat people because none would have been picked for the show.

There were probably no fat people because most of the people were under 30, and doing 'coke'(remember the epidemic of the "not addictive"drug)?

Now when my hubby and I go to a Moody Blues concert, there are PLENTY of overweight people, reminiscing and kissing.

That being said, I am 5 ft 5 inches and weigh 150 lbs, am "at risk" for type 2 diabetes, owing to the fact that BOTH my parents had/have it. One was overweight, one is underweight. I am an RN and do NOT stuff my face with junk food, and usually walk close to 5 miles/day. I do NOT look like Demi Moore or Goldie Hawn, more like Bette Midler (I also have a proportionate sense of humor). I have been happily married for 28 years to a man who is 6 foot, and has weighed as much as 247 lbs, and as little as 185. I STILL see him as the handsome young marathon runner I married so long ago. We have two children healthy weighted for their body build, and we encouraged then to eat "just one bite more" so that they wouldn't be hungry two hours later, and want crap food. THAT being said, we gave them CHILD sized portions of healthy food, with few sweets. So I think that there is a LOT of genetics involved in obesity, and type 2 diabetes and if we can re-direct those, we are on the right path.

And, inevitably, we ALL age and become no longer so "poster-worthy".

Self-righteousness and arrogance is so very helpful. Thanks for sharing.

@Richard-727729 You are so Stupidly Arrogant to think that Obesity is Simply Overeating. NEWS FLASH BUTTHEAD, OBESITY IS RARELY Caused by Overeating... Mine is actually 1 of those cases...I am heavy due to Genetics. My father is 6'3" 300lbs and an Ex Football Player His father was 6'6" and a Firefighter My mom is 5'6" and a Farm Girl, and Her Mom was 6'1" and was a Female boxer way back in the 30's and 40's So grow Out of you r Arrogance Look at Science and Grow a Brain!!!

@ 1 concerned american

Yer thats fine, you're all tall take that into account. Being 300lbs at any height tho is called being a fat b*****d, even being an ex-football player (meaning over used weight machines, built up loads of muscle which turned to fat as he got old).

It is not your genetics to be fat just because people you look up to (who are older than you meaning they're bound to have larger waist lines as you naturally get fatter as you age) are fat.

Face it, cut down on the eating, exercise more (not as your father did pumping iron, but running, rowing, etc more cardio) and your "genetic disorder" will fade away.

Warning! you may also grow a brain as a result of reading this, DO NOT BE ALARMED!!!

Krik, YOU grow a brain cell! Muscle does NOT turn into fat, it merely becomes smaller and is covered with fat. Plus, if once you wer big and muscular, you will still be big, and covered in loose flappy skin! Revisit you college anatomy and physiology 101!

Then there's the fathead.

Diet soda tastes better than regular soda (at least to me). Regular soda is like drinking straight syrup. It's gross.

@megidolaon

I can feel my teeth dissolving away with each sip as well

Thanks for the laugh, Frank. :)

Hahahahahahaha!

Read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price and you will see all his research refutes what you just surmised. He studied the healthiest tribes all over the world in the 1930's before everywhere was contaminated.

Dean Ornish is one of the last people one should ever cite about nutrition. Keep in mind that he supports the low fat, high grains diets that have been all the rage with the "medical" community for the last 50 years. How's that worked out for us?

Fact is, good science refutes what the AMA, ADA, FDA all say about food and what to eat. People need to stop taking what the government (backed by lobbyists for agriculture and medicine (statins, anyone?)) say about nutrition and do some reading on all sides of the fence.

You didn't get it. A diet soda vs a regular soda will make no significant difference given the all you can eat meal that will accompany it.

1 food calorie (kcal) generates enough energy to heat 1 kg of water 1 degree C. A can of pop has about 120 or so calories. Your body gladly converts that energy to heat, or stores it as fat, or excretes it.

If you eat a 1000-calorie burger and then add on a 32-oz soda, another 400 calories of easily-digestible sugar, you're telling me that ALL those soda calories just *poof* evaporate? Dream on, dude.

You ever see the physics problem where you figure out how many calories it takes to raise the temperature of a glass of whiskey from 0 degrees C to body temperature? You then look at the calorie count of the whiskey (far less) and come up with the foolproof whiskey diet. (Hint: it's a joke: cal and kcal are unrelated).

Mike - cal and kcal are most definitely related. They are both a measure of energy. A kcal is 1000 cal.

@SteveB - I didn't say the calories evaporate, I said a couple of hundred calories saved won't make up for the 6,000 + calories you just ate at the buffet.

You didn't get it. A diet soda vs a regular soda will make no significant difference given the all you can eat meal that will accompany it.

Sure it will. A long time ago I switched from regular Pepsi to Diet Pepsi, for dental reasons actually....kept getting cavities btwn the front teeth, which is where everything you drink washes thru. Sugar's sticky & causes cavities. Elementary. I thought the dentist was full of it, rolled my eyes, but agreed to accept his challenge b/c I thought I'd prove him wrong.

6 mos later, no cavities at checkup. He was right. So there's a reason right there to put no sugary liquid drinks in your mouth. Juice is actually another bad thing to drink for your teeth b/c that's also loaded w/ sugar. We're taught to brush after we eat, but no one thinks to do it after they drink, & therefore that sugar stays put & causes cavities.

An unexpected side effect of changing from cola w/ calories to cola w/ no calories was that I lost 11 lbs that 1st month. W/o dieting or adding more exercise. That was the effect of losing that 800 or so calories a day (a cpl cans) that was simply thirst-quenching. Also explained the steadily growing size of my ass; when you follow up exercise w/ a can of pop b/c it made you thirsty, you've just undone the exercise. Duhh.

I think what you're not getting is that while, yes, a diet soda isn't going to magically counteract a high-calorie meal, at least it's not going to add any more calories to it. So, yes, it is somewhat helpful. Calorie-laden pop would just make ppl gain more weight.

There have been studies that suggest that diet soda is actually less healthy for you then the sugary regular sodas. These studies suggest that, unless you have diabetes, you should not be drinking diet soda. The suggested beverage is water with a twist of lemon or lime.

Please do not as for links. First off, I am only semi-computer literate (can't figure out how to add links). Secondly, I remember reading these articles on the internet, so maybe someone else can look them up.

I wish that it were so simple, Lori, but alas, I fear it is not. I do happen to believe that the tendency of late to pour on the engineered 'high fructose corn syrup' has caused a great many problems for a great many people, and there is research to back this up. While cane sugar has taken many a lick from health watchers, I suspect it is nowhere near as damaging as the modified corn fructose compounds.

The Voice of Doom -

But high-fructose corn syrup (oops, I mean "corn sugar") and cane sugar are the same! Your body can't tell the difference! The corn industry told me so on the tv!

Those commercials make me want to retch. I hope people aren't stupid enough to believe them.

Megidolaon - I was going to disagree with you after reading your first paragraph, but you redeemed yourself with your last statement. "Real" sugar produced from sugar cane and beets is nearly pure sucrose, a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose in a one-to-one ratio linked together with a relatively weak glycosidic bond. During digestion, sucrose is broken down into one molecule of fructose and one molecule of glucose.

High-fructose corn syrup is produced by milling corn to produce corn starch, then processing that starch to yield corn syrup, which is almost entirely glucose, and then adding enzymes that change some of the glucose into fructose. The end result is about 42% fructose. That can be further purified to as high as 90% fructose. Fructose can then be remixed with glucose to yield high fructose corn syrup containing varying amounts of fructose and glucose. One theory is that it's the increased amount of fructose over glucose in HFCS that is responsible for increased diabeties, obesity, etc. In other words, the scientific community has not yet been able to determine if the excess fructose disrupts our otherwise normal biological systems.

Chemically, a molecule of fructose is the same regardless of whether it has been formed biologically from sucrose through digestion or chemically by altering corn starch. What the Corn Refiners Association fails to mention in their ads is that HFCS pumps a greater percentage of frustose to glucose into our bodies than we get when consuming table sugar. They neglect to mention that HFCS is a highly processed food additive whereas cane sugar is basically produced by allowing cane juice to crystalize. The Corn Refiners Association also fails to mention that HFCS is contaminated with mercury from the chemicals used during the production process.

Reasons for why HFCS have replaced cane sugar in American diets include governmental production quotas of domestic sugar, subsidies of U.S. corn, and an import tariff on foreign sugar; all of which combine to raise the price of sucrose to levels above those of the rest of the world, making HFCS less costly for many sweetener applications. Once again...our government at work supporting big business at the expense of the health of our citizens. So, thank your Representatives and Senators for another job well done in screwing the American public.

Scales -- thanks for the explanation! I've always known HFCS was "different" but never understood the chemical reasoning why. Also interesting to note that many things in Europe are made with sucrose (beet sugar) instead -- including many sodas. To my mind, they taste better!

I'm sure when they are done they will find what triggers the "Master Switch" to do it's damage is sugar. Control carbs and you have control.

I pretty much live on carbs. I'm heavily into Italian & Mexican food. I love any kind of pasta dishes, pizza, low-fat refried bean burritos w/ lettuce, tomato, cheese, & sauce, Spanish rice, tortilla or corn chips. A cpl slices of buttered (not margarined ugh) Italian bread is a snack. I usually do Nutri-Grain & Special K bars for breakfast, or I'll pull out the waffle iron or scramble some eggs. Very rarely do I have a traditional American "meat & potatoes" dinner & when I do it's more likely to be turkey or chicken, tho I do get an occasional tomato-sauce-smothered meatloaf craving once in a while, & I confess I hit the Burger King drive-thru at least once a month for a Whopper Jr & some onion rings.

I've actually been losing weight eating this way. It's coming off the right way, slowly, & I'm good w/ that b/c the rapid weight loss fads aren't healthy & chances are the faster it comes off the faster you gain it back. I have 8 lbs to go b4 I hit what my PCP states is "ideal weight". Cholesterol levels & all that other blood work nonsense are good. And I'm not torturing myself to get there; I'm eating what I like to eat (I find fish of any kind revolting). Amazing, innit? Defies all fad diet logic, yet it works.

So I think protein is going to prove to be the "master switch" simply b/c I don't eat a lot of meat. My protein intake comes mainly from beans, cheese, & eggs, not meats. While it may seem odd b/c for centuries meat was the mainstay of the human diet, I just take into consideration that ppl in days of yore engaged in a lot more physical activity than we do in the 21st century. Most ppl don't have jobs involving hard manual labor to burn off their caloric intake anymore.

What works for some doesn't work for others. We are not all the same.............

There are more insidious reasons why high fructose corn syrup is used instead of sugar. As I understand it, a drink made with cane sugar will hit your bloodstrean more quickly, and therefore turn off your appetite. High fructose corn syrup has a delayed reaction, so you can drink much more if it before you realize you're satisfied. Bigger sales!

Just like MSG, which is put in Doritos. It triggers a reaction where you just want to eat more and more. Empty bag = buy more!

We have to face the fact that we are being chemically manipulated for the sole benefit these manufacturers

I think it's the sugar, too. Not just high-fructose corn syrup, but any kind of sugar that seems to have made its way excessively into everything (even hot sauce and jars of pickles).

There's a lecture I watched recently by Robert H. Lustig... he talks allll about sugar and basically frames out fructose to be a toxin to our body. You guys might find it interesting (at least I did), just search for "Sugar: The Bitter Truth".

Anything that has been refined is not the best choice....

Type I Diabetes is Juvenile Diabetes, 1Devon.

True, but it can be diagnosed at 2 years of age or 17 years of age. But, you're right, they both are juvenile diabetes. Also, as I said, I know people who don't have an ounce of body fat who struggle with high cholesterol.

@1devon - There is good evidence that it is not the number of fat cells a person has, its the size of the individual cells. You got your fat cells early in life, when you gain weight you do not get more fat cells, the fat cells you have get larger. The droplet of oil inside the fat cell gets larger. As the fat cell gets larger the body must strengthen the cell wall. It does this by increasing the saturation of the lipids in the cell wall. This makes the wall stronger and stiffer. This increased stiffness is what contributes to insulin resistance, which is a hallmark of Type II diabetes.
That is why liposuction won't help reverse Type II diabetes. That is also why a person who got few fat cells early in life can get Type II diabetes without being obese. The few fat cells present are, while too large, don't add up to a lot of pounds.

Darthdon,

You incorrect about liposuction not reversing Type II Diabetes. Medical science has now proven if one has the fat in the stomach area liposuctioned out, that person will immediately stop being diabetic!

Look it up!

slvrjv - Post the link, if you can, because I know you are wrong. (If you were right, providers of Liposuction would be advertizing it and insurance companies would cover it, if not require it.)

Thanks to almost all of you, for realizing the difference between Type l and Type ll Diabetes. It is gratifying to see that people are informed - and that they understand.

Just a note again, that Type 1 occurs when an immune reaction causes cells to mistakenly attack the pancreatic cells.It is most often diagnosed in children- (even as young as 3 years of age or younger.) Although there is much ongoing research, the disease currently requires multiple daily insulin injections or an insulin pump- for life. It does not stem from unhealthy food habits, but from a so-far unexplained attack from within, on the pancreas of these young children.

If you're interested, there is more information at JDRF.com. Thanks again.

All of you big-mouthed sarcastic, so called lean machines aren't nurses or doctors and are basing the majority of your information on only what meets the eye. I was once very lean, but not anymore. Not do to foods, only, but a series of major surgeries and a variety of medicines to save my life. The next time you make your shady remarks about an obese person, you need to stop and think that it may be you one day, or your sister, or brother, or mama ,your daddy, or your son or your daughter, or your grand son or your grand daughter, or your niece or your nephew. Dont be so quick to judge, because it just may be you or one of your family member one day for whatever reason. Never in my whole life would I have ever dreamed that I would be walking in these shoes. Be careful of the stones you throw!!!!!

High cholesterol is very MUCH linked to genetics, much more so than previously thought. If thought IS the issue, then think about type II Diabetes being discovered in chidren as young as four now. Nature vs. nurture? A LOT IS Nature, some of it is nurture, but I look to genetics studies.

we have a magic cure, healthy raw food diet, just nobody wants to eat it

You are killing yourself worrying about the Republicans, Mike. It really isn't worth your time.

The republicans can't be stopped

"I am Rudy Giuliani, you must obey me! I AM RUDY GIULIANI, YOU MUST OBEY ME!!!" mwuhahaha

Obesity is a chronic disease because it's a result of genetics & biological factors, illnesses that cause weight gain, incl hypothyroidism, Cushing's syndrome, & polycystic ovary syndrome, &/or medications (such as steroids, SSRIs) used to treat diseases like lupus & depression.

You'd be surprised how little ppl have to weigh to be *medically classified* as "obese" using the BMI scale; for most "normal-height" women (4'10"-5'5") it can be less than 150 lbs. That grossly inflates the head count in this. Someone who weighs 135-150 lbs is not model-thin, but I don't think they should be categorized as "obese" just for being short, or acquiring some extra pounds from pregnancy, or getting a little middle-aged spread at menopause. Our aging "baby boomer" population is also artificially inflating the obesity head count as most ppl do gain weight as they get older.

Some ppl who are grossly "morbidly obese"....what you'd imagine the weight of such ppl would be, not the 175 lbs many women are labled as at....have gotten SSI or SSD for being unable to work or unable to find anyone to hire them in a society where appearance & the cost of health insurance premiums matter more than anything, tho usually there's a medical problem involved in that determination & it's not solely granted due to weighing 400+ lbs.

Obesity has not, however, *officially* been tagged as a disease, just an "epidemic".

Yeah, well, the 1918 influenza epidemic killed millions all over the world, so since the powers that be don't consider it a disease, they might want to rethink their dramatic assessment & phrasing.

That, & remove from their head count ppl who could stand to drop 5-10 or even 50 lbs & only count those who are truly morbidly obese (ie, suffers from a health problem directly related to obesity). It wouldn't be such an "epidemic" if it was calculated correctly.

While I'm sure there are some rare genetic conditions that contribute to obesity, the vast majority of people make themselves fat. I saw as much this weekend. Cereal eaten from a mixing bowl rather than a cereal bowl. Multiple plates from a buffet, and not one of them contained anything green. Add a near complete lack of movement to that, and it isn't your genes that are your enemy, it's you.

You are SO right! As an orthopedic nurse I work with morbidly obese folks on a daily basis. When they first stand up on their new knees/hips/backs, they finally actually FEEL the pain that they've put on their natural joints for 40 years or more. They then usually draw up their leg (surgical site) and hang on us. I have multiple compressed discs, a bad ankle, and severe osteoarthritis in both of my thumbs, yet I can't even THINK of a disability income at this point in our economy. I just think I, like Homer Simpson, need to gain so much weight that i can earn disability. I'm NOT saying that everyone with a 'bad' back SHOULDN'T recieve disability insurance, but if I tried this stuff, they (the government assistance program ppl) would kick my fanny to New York and back, with steel toed boots. Yet each day I care for the morbidly obese, the illegal immigrants and the 20,30 and 40 somethings on government paid subsidies, whose insurance I pay for. Ok, I'll stop my self righteous rant and just state my point. The morbidly obese suffer from concommitant co-morbidities. If these can be changed, and give those folks some relief from their obesity related diseases, out insurance premiums would decrease, as well as our taxes for those who suffer (and I DO mean suffer) from this disease.

its not that, man. the thing is that American scientist were to busy eating Whoppers and Mcnuggets and watching tv to actually get up and do some research.