Re:The Estrogen Hypothesis of Obesity
by Houshalter on Saturday June 14, 2014 @09:22PM
(#7894101)
This is the widely accepted theory but it doesn't explain everything. For example, lab animals have actually gotten fatter over time as well, and they are eating carefully measured diets and living in controlled conditions.
Diets are also not effective at losing weight. People rarely stay on them, and a fat person must eat significantly fewer calories, not just the same amount, than a normal person to maintain a healthy weight. Their metabolisms resemble those of starving people, the body desperately trying to return itself to it's "normal" weight.
Likewise normal people fed lots of food to become fat, quickly return to their previous weight after they stop. Genetic studies find obesity is more heritable than nearly any other condition including mental illness, breast cancer, and heart disease. It also appears to be affected by epigenetics. If your grandmother was starving you have a higher probability of becoming obese.
Fatness in the this century is due to an abundance of processed food that is readily available and has simple storage needs. Combine that with an abundance of idle time, especially urban poor, and its not a good mix. I love going through photo archives and the one thing that stood out is the lack of obesity, its like the people taking photos went out of their way to not show it.
Welcome to the world of Wall-E. People are going to have to adapt, those selling packaged food will need to adapt, so that we don't end up there.