>On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, snit snat wrote:
>
> > >Personal responsibility is all to the good, but everything else in "Fat
> > >Land" suggests it is probably no match for the thrifty gene and the
> > >Happy Meal.
> >
> > wow! gee! another authoroperating from the same framework as Friedman! :)
>
>Except for coming to the opposite conclusion, of course, as you note in
>your happy face.
I think the problem is this: he's saying it's not an epidemic. You know what an epidemic is--everyone is catching it. He's saying that the numbers suggest that the fatsos are just getting fatsoier, not that everyone is getting more fatso (or catching it).
>To be serious though, we can't really call it the same framework.
>Friedman's framework is that genes determine all behavior and environment
>none. This framework is that genes and environment interact -- a big
>difference.
WEll, he's talking about the OBESE and morbidly OBESE, not normal people. Further, he does take environment and psychology into account. He says that most people don't calculate cal. intake properly: they get it wrong by 10%. He then points out that eating more than you should by just 10% can add up to significant weight gain. IOW, you can _think_ you're doing everything right and hardly overeating contrary to folks who think people are just eating like pigs! If I'm supposed to eat 1600 cals a day, it's not too hard to get 160 extra in just by treating myself to some o' that fancy coffee Dwayne drinks. It is, conversely, pretty time consuming to burn off that 160. To do that, I'd have to go for a 40 minute brisk walk, lift weights for 40 minutes, 40 minute swim, etc.
Also, when it comes to genetics, he says that normal people don't encounter all that food and respond the same way. The obese, however, do. So, we are seeing a rise in obesity among those who've always been prone to it, but haven't been exposed to the same conditions. He was, further, talking about the difficulty the obese have maintaining their weight loss. As a poster offlist said, his wife has to work very hard at it after she lost 40 lbs.. Of course! But, most people measure themselves against the normal and think they are failures if they can't do the same.
BTW, if you want to find out how fuxored your metabolism is, you can take your temperature before you get out of bed in the a.m. For every degree below normal, your metabolism is 10% slower than it ought to be. WEight lifters use the technique to tell when they need to go on a refeed to boost their leptin levels with a carb load. I know this one obsessed guy who carb loads on something like 8000 cals worth of smarties and sweetarts! He's proud of that! And guess what!? He does it so he can cut to 9% bodyfat. He ingest 8000 cals to lose weight! LOL! It's not because he's a genetic freak, he's just taking advantage of, yep, laws of physics as they operate in the context of a body's complex hormonal systems.
Kelley