to think that people's weight is mostly down to how they're made?

[blackwell]

OK, I know there are a few people who either overeat massively or starve, but I think that in general if people are 'heavily built' or 'lightly built' that is just how they are. I would say most of my friends eat roughly the same amount, yet there is quite a big difference in size between us. Some people are just naturally slim and maintain it without effort, and others are naturally bigger and it would take a massive effort for them to maintain a size 8/10 whatever.

It's a massively unscientific theory, I know, mainly based on my personal acquaintance!

Eric, your appetite and predisposition to be sluggish probably ARE genetic!

Oh, and dieting does not permanently damage your metabolism, that's a myth.

So I guess I am saying that I agree to an extent with the OP saying (further down) that within the acceptable BMI range people will naturally fall in different places. That's the point of having a range. BMI does not say 'you will be healthy at all of these weights', nor does it say 'your ideal weight is exactly in the middle of this range', it says that your healthy weight will be somewhere in this range. Some people's healthy weights will be a BMI of 25, and they will be skeletal with a BMI of 20. Others will be healthy with a BMI of 20 and will have a beer belly at a BMI of 25. For women you have to remember that boobs can weigh a lot, and they are not an unhealthy place to cary fat (unlike fat around your stomach and organs).

Leonie I know Taubes is not the only one to discuss the carb hypothesis, but he's the only one I've read!

Being fat around the thighs is also not a health risk.

Actually I would argue that some people can naturally be into the 'overweight' BMI range - being in the overweight bit is not an indicator for health problems, it's when you get into the 'obese' bit that you are more likely to have problems

EricN - you lost 6 inches round your waist and only 2 on your hips? How much on your norks? That must make you an amazing shape!

Yes, thigh fat much healthier than stomach fat - does anyone know about calves? I'll assume it's ok as far away from organs, so I'm good :)

No it is down to mathematics.

If:

You eat more calories than you need you will gain weight.

You eat the required amount of calories that you need you will maintain your current weight.

You eat less calories than you need you will lose weight.

People rarely know the calorie content of their food and appropriate portion sizes. I am currently trying to lose baby weight. When I started I would pour cereal into a bowl and guess the portion, it was almost twice what it should be, so now I weigh it and get the portion correct. It is a lot smaller than you think. A lot of people also think some things such as fruit /vegetables can be eaten in unlimited quantities as they are lower calorie per gramme than fats and sugar, but they do still contain calories and have to be counted.

I do think people have a natural weight that their body wants to be but you can adjust it by using the maths.

If you wrote a food diary and added up every single calorie that passed your lips it would all come back down to the maths.

It is exactly down to mathematics charleymouse - I think what some people are trying to get at is that the amount you need is not constant for everyone.

I think, dinosaur, that anyone who has ever been on a diet knows very well how many calories there are in snacks. I'd bet that most fat people have a much better idea of the calories in foods than people who have never strugled with their weight. Probably, a lot of fat people also exercise a lot more than the media gives them credit for.

The cycle of shame has a lot to answer for. The idea that heavier people lack "self control" or are "greedy" or that they are being "good" or "bad" creates an emotional relationship with food which often overrides internal hunger signals. Many, many people intentionally over- or undereat because of self-loathing.

Naturally thin people don't have that food-emotion link. Thin people who watch what they eat do. I know a girl who is my height but a size 8 who people see as "naturally thin" but she becomes animatedly horrified when her partner eats two potatoes - despite the fact he has a job that involves heavy manual labour. She sees eating two potatoes as "greedy". He has become very, very thin since they got together - because of her laudable "self-control"?

Many, many people have food issues. Many conflate food and emotion and self-identity. You can't tell by looking at the size of their ass whether they just enjoy food, are perpetually starving on a diet, are controlling every bite or are just a bit lazy. You just can't tell.

YANBU

this is an interesting piece on endomorphs, mesomorphs and ectomorphs

SGB that is possibly the most sensible post I've read here for a long time. As a child I was told I was fat (I wasn't, I have the photos to prove it). I went on my first diet at about 14 and my weight has ballooned since then. I am constantly on a diet or preparing to go on one. I'm not saying I eat lettuce all day, I don't. But when I compare what I eat with DH for example who is very slim, the differences aren't that great, not great enough to account for the many stones difference between us.

yabu.
Unless you count attitudes towards eating and exercise to be part of "how you are made"

I disagree with the OP.

I've lived with a lot of people over the years - uni housemates and lodgers, and it was obvious from their eating habits why the thin ones were thin and the fat ones were fat.

I'm overweight myself and it's because I eat too much and am not active enough. I can't understand thin friends who say 'sometimes I forget to have dinner if I'm busy.' I Would never miss a meal. And some people will follow up a huge lunch with a piece of toast for dinner, but by that stage I'm ready for a full meal again.

I remember someone bringing in cakes and biscuits to work for a birthday. As a constant dieter, I went for a biscuit, muttering something about not going too mad. A slim colleague took a cream slice and said that it looked like it wasn't that calorific. I was that she didn't know that cream, jam, icing and pastry wasn't highly calorific. But she genuinely had no idea, had never needed to know.

I think it's too simple to say ,exercise and consume fewer calories.I'm a healthy 12/14,five foot 10,but if I exercise for 45 minutes,my sugar levels drop quickly and I need to eat quite a lot.It was easier to exercise when I wasn,t rushing around being a mum,but my sugar levels dip so quickly now,I often feel too faint to exercise.My doctors tell me its normal.I would love to go on 2 mile runs,like some people,but would start feeling faint unless i kept stopping to eat.

I agree that people are built differently and need/burn off different amounts of calories.
I lived with a girl at University who was the same height as me but weighed about 3stone less (I was at my thinnest then as well), she ate the most amount of food I ever seen anyone eat, complete glutton. Now she ups her exercise to keep up with her appetite, then she simply didn't need to.

EricN, I agree with Trills, you sound like my DH's idea of heaven, va va voom.

The issue here is that people attach a moral value to eating habits. So it is obvious that thin people are thin because of how they eat and fat ones are fat because of how they eat.. but none of that speaks to how or why they eat what they do.

It's a complex, multifactorial thing. Yes, my mother overeats by a huge amount.. and my friend undereats by a significant amount. Why, though? Is it related to genetics, up-bringing, metabolics, society, emotions etc? Or all of the above? There are chickens and eggs.. The only thing I am sure of is that thin people are not thin because they are better morally than fat people, nor are fat people moreally worse than thin people. Unfortunately, a lot of discussion about weight implies value judgement on both thin and heavy women.

There are chickens and eggs, and those eggs can be fried or poached, and the chickens can be grilled or they can be breaded and deep-fried.

Formal, deliberate exercise is almost irrelevant when it comes to weight loss. We tend to have a set-point of activity that appears to be inborn. Studies done on kids show that if you up the amount of PE in school, those same kids, without knowing it, reduce the amount of other movement they do (ie lie on sofa, not play actively, not make a many incidental movements such as kicking legs while sitting on a chair, getting up and wandering about). It also increases appetite, so unless combined with a careful diet, exercise will be cancelled out by really very small amounts of food.

YABU

Yes, there is an element of genetics in it, but then it is largely down to choices people make.

A study was done a few years ago on people who were obese. All of them swore BLIND that they didn't eat much, but still put on weight/were large - it was obviously down to genetics etc. etc.. However, they were asked to write down what they ate as they ate it. the difference between what they remembered eating and what they actually eat was remarkable - the people running the study basically said they developed "eating amnesia". I kind of observed this with a flatmate. She was a stress eater, and during exams EVERY evening she'd go "I've had such a hard day, I'm going to get a takeaway" and would get wonton soup, special fried rice and singapore noodles. EVERY day. Forgetting that she'd exactly the same large and calorific meal for dinner the previous day.

There are people where they do genuinely have a a physical condition (like the people where the brain doesn't register when they're full). But this is not true for everyone who is overweight.

Yet, TS, some heavy people will eat the poached eggs and the grilled chicken and some thin people will eat the breaded and deep-fried chicken. Regularly.

lovelymumma that doesn't sound normal to me. I'm diabetic and so am used to sugar lows, but you should be able to exercise for more than 45 mins without feeling faint?