Quote:
Originally Posted by clvquilts
Meg had summarized Chapter 5 as a "rounded up the studies proving that obesity is a genetically linked trait and that it’s extremely difficult to manipulate your weight outside of a preset range."
If Kolata's premised based on her interperation of the studies is true, how does she account for 2/3's of Americans to be significantly overweight and how this has been an upward trend in our society over the past few decades?
Don't the hundreds of thousands of people who are 50, 100, 200, 300, etc pounds above their ideal weight disprove the 'preset weight range' theory?
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Her argument, as I understand it, is that the weight has been going up because of the environment. That the environment is one in which we are able to "fully express" the full extent of our genetic predisposition for obesity.
This ties into her comparision to the heights of Americans during the Civil War and how it was so many inches below the average height today and that that is due to proper nutrition and thus the genetic predispostition to be tall can be fully expressed since there isn't starvation to stunt growth, just as there isn't starvation to halt weight gain.
That's what I got out of it anyway!
