I posted this over in Living Maintenance but thought it would be of interest here, too.

Did anyone read the cover story of this week's New York Times Magazine? It's about "microbesity," which apparently is the theory that the microbes in our gut, or exposure to certain viruses, may play a role in why some of us gain and hold onto fat more easily than other people. The article notes that genes and behavior are still important contributors to obesity but if the research pans out, they'll add the microflora in our gut as a third contributor. I haven't finished the article yet. I highly recommend it if you can get your hands on it - it's fascinating.

You can read this online if you sign up for a free login for the NYTimes. The link is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/ma...d57&ei=5087%0A

I finished the article yesterday and was going to post something about it. It was very interesting. Who knows - maybe some day they will be able to definitively answer the question why for some people it is much harder to lose weight than for others. I think many of us have always felt that we could eat similar amounts of food to others and gain weight anyway (I have at least). I have always thought it was mostly in my head, but then again maybe not.

One aspect the article talked about was the factor of weight becoming less of a stigma because people would look at it more like a disease. However, I don't think they mentioned the flip side which is if you can get fat(ter) from a virus, then it might turn fat people into a type of lepers? Thin people might live in fear of mixing with fat people and catching the fat virus. Of course if they could vaccinate everyone against it then that worry would be gone.

I haven't read the whole article but I've read Meg's comments on it (which I find fantastic!) over at the Maintainers Forum. Sounds quite interesting.

Thanks for posting the topic BreakingFree and for the link Nancy.

~Dee