Quote:
Originally Posted by TurboMammoth
However, only a minimal percentage of people has trouble losing weight du to genetic issues (can't remember the exact % though, but it was something like 1-2%), stricly scientifically speaking.
I think that at a point, we have to stop pointing out genetic issus that interfer in our weight loss, because there is 1% of the chance that this is ctually the problem.
This is one of those numbers that actually gets thrown around frequently, but with little or no actual science behind it.
The number of people who cannot lose weight is actually zero percent - because if you prevent a person from eating anything, they will lose weight until they die (though they frequently may die before they lose much weight).
However, the number of people who "have trouble losing weight" because of genetic factors may be far, far greater than we ever suspected before (but mostly because we weren't looking).
Not only have scientists found several "obesity genes" in animals and humans, they even know how some of them work (and can estimate how many people in a given area carry that gene - and all of them so far, have been found in far more than 1% of the population). Every year, the researchers are estimating genetic factors to be more and more influencial than ever thought before. 1% is a ridiculous number, especially if you're reading the research that is actually trying to determine which those genetic factors are, and how prevalent they are in the population.
One doctor explained it very well, saying that obesity is always a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Some environments are so short of food, and require so much physical work just to survive, that regardless of your genetics, the odds of anyone becoming obese is virtually zero). This is the environment that humans evolved under - in the "natural world" overpopulation occurs long before calorie-concentrations will support widespread obesity.
An environment can also be so overabundent in food (combined with a sedentary culture and social pressure to overeat) that virtually everyone would be overweight (and the USA is heading there).
This doctor also said that some people (because of their genetic inheritance) will be fat in all but the scarcest food environment, and some will be thin in all but the most overly abundant environment - but most people fall in the middle (but there's still a very wide bit of territory in between).
The current knowledge of genetic factors usut isn't sufficient to justify making any numerical claims as to "how much" is environmental and how much is genetic. Or to measure the effects in any individual.
If you don't believe me, look for the science. Try to find research to back it up (and look at how they're measuring "genetic" factors - because we don't yet know all of the genes that contribute to obesity, so how are we going to identify the people with and without those genes).
You also have to consider the interactive effect. Most of us do not live in food-impoverished nations - so do we "beat" our genetics by moving there? Well, that's a little extreme.
Both genetics and environment are largely inescapable. When we undertand genes well enough (probably in several hundred years) gene therapy may be part of the solution, but that's not generally an option now. Environment is all we can control, so that's where we have to focus our efforts, but there's still no way as of yet, to determine whether any one person's obesity is mainly genetic or mainly environment (and it really doesn't matter anyway, because we can't do much about the genetic at this point - so we're still left with modifying the environment).