I don’t just mean large, but -getting cut out of your house- level big, taking things like frame size into account, of course.
Is there usually something wrong with the metabolism of people who get that size, in general? Are their bodies natural set points higher than everyone else’s? Do we even have natural set points?
::crossing my fingers that this won’t become a trainwreck::
This is a great question and I’m regretting not having enough time to give it the detailed answer it deserves.
In brief, the answer to your question is NO. There are a number of lines of evidence for this but, IMHO, the most convincing are studies done on prisoners in the 1950’s (I may be wrong about the date, but the key thing is that they took place in an era where ethical considerations were essentially non-existant). In any case, prisoners were encouraged to eat as much as possible and to gain weight (I seem to recall that they were also rewarded for being successful). So, the more weight they gained, the more they profited. Here is a quote summarizing what happened:
Pretty impressive. The implication of the study is, of course, that marked obesity is simply more than overeating. (NB - an average person is about 1.5 to 2.0 square meters, a fact that should you interpret the foregoing).
If/when time permits, I will post some of the other evidence with respect to your question. Still, as an indirect point, let me remind you that a single gene mutation in mice can lead to morbid obesity, and that such mice gain more weight for a given caloric intake than their genetically normal relatives. Again, this underscores (in my mind, at least) the “organic” cause of obesity (as opposed to a psychological illness).
In my haste, I forgot to give the attribtion for the quote in my post above. It was from here.
Do you know if they continued to try to gain weight more weight but couldn’t in the study? It makes sense that it requires more calories to stay fat, but some really morbidly obese people, the kind the OP is talking about, eat crazy amounts of food ever day, like a dozen eggs, pound of bacon, whole lage pizza, 2 bags of chips, etc. Did the prisoners stop gaining weight despite eating enough to stay fat, and then some more on top of that to get fatter?
This link talks about a group of morbidly obese people who eat about 33,000 calories a day. That’s a bit higher than the 10,000 in your cite, KarlGauss.
I’d suspect that the answer is yes and no. For any particular weight you want to achieve there is some particular number of calories that you would need to consume, but that number is going to vary based on your metabolism. So for some it will be easier to become morbidly obese than others. Psychological issues are there as well, being able to stomach large quantities of food isn’t just a physical issue. If you really really like food and just don’t get that “Oof, this isn’t worth it” feeling when you’re overeating, that is going to help.
We need an episode of 30 days where Morgan Spurlock consumes 30,000+ calories a day. How much weight would he gain in one month of that lifestyle?
Out of curiosity, how much food is that?
I suspect that he would die, to be honest (or just hork up most of everything he ate.) If I recall correctly, morbidly obese have a larger stomach due to stretching and whatnot, so someone who hadn’t built up the physique, probably wouldn’t be able to manage it.
Well if the average person should/does eat about 2000 calories a day, then it’s going to be about 15 times the amount of food that the average person eats.
Assuming that obesity is a result of continuous overeating… I assume you don’t have the urge to consume a whole large pizza, 2 bags of chip, a pound of bacon, and a dozen eggs in one sitting. Why don’t you, and why do they?
I read The Dairy of a Fat Housewife which was very enlightening. The woman really struggled to not to eat two whole bags of chocolate fun size bar she’d bought for Halloween trick and treaters, and ate them anyway. My idea of extreme no-willpower overindulgence is to eat, oh, 5 fun-size bars. My mouth would feel too thirsty/nasty and I’d feel too crummy to eat more. So, why was she driven to do that? It doesn’t take me willpower to not to eat whole bags of candy bars any more than it takes me willpower to not to jump on a nail bed, but apparently for her it is.
Well to hit 500 lbs or whatever without being grown in a vat, you’d usually have to pass 200 and 300 and 400 and be ambulatory for awhile, which would weed out most of the population. It’s all a bell curve after all, and if it was possible for more people to hit those extremes they wouldn’t be extremes. Being big-boned ain’t the half of it, carrying that weight and living is more like an extreme athletic endurance thing, I’d liken it to the percentage of the population who might be able to be a Shaquille O’Neal if they tried. Just like for every Shaq there’s 100 guys who blew out their knee trying, well I’d get a heart attack if I was 300 lbs.
I’m pretty sure most people would die trying to hit a really big weight, like 400 or whatever Gilbert Grape’s mom weighed. Logic tells us that even given the metabolism to store fat and the prediliction to do so, the (guiness-type) people on the far end of the scale are far beyond the average ability to carry weight.
Say you’re 40, average height, 200 lbs which is a bit high, not in great shape…and you strap 200 more pounds on your back and live life. Not even a good analogy because the heart and organ functions would be more difficult. It takes training, probably years of building up to it. Maybe an early start like being an obese kid.
Even so I think its rare, just like there’s a lot of rare 6’10" guys who couldnt handle the wear and tear of NBA life for long. They just have heart attacks instead of blowing out a knee.
Here is 30,000 calories, more or less:
McDonald’s double quarterpounder with cheese (740)
McD’s large fries (500)
McD’s chocolate shake, 32 oz size (770)
1 cup whole almonds (817)
Snickers bar (271)
18-oz jar of peanut butter (3,040)
11-oz bag of crunchy Cheetos (1,760)
pint of Ben & Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream (1,080)
1 quart of whole milk (600)
large can of Spam (1,020)
large (6-oz) can of tuna in oil (490)
1 cup raisins (493)
10 slices of bacon (340)
1 cup sunflower seeds (841)
1 whole extra-large Pizza Hut pepperoni lover’s pizza (2,720)
1 pound of cheddar cheese (1,824)
1 dozen glazed fritters from Dunkin Donuts (3,120)
Taco Bell Cheesy Bean & Rice burrito value meal (490)
10 giant Slim Jims (1,500)
1 can of refried beans (470)
Starbuck frappacino, Venti (323)
can of Bush’s baked beans (560)
KFC chicken sandwich, original recipe (497)
Philly beef n swiss sub from Arby’s (755)
10 chocolate-covered Oreo cookies (1,150)
1 cup of butter (1,628)
Outback Steakhouse “chocolate thunder from Down Under” dessert (1,220)
1 cup shredded coconut (283)
plate of onion rings, about 16 rings (550)
1 cup mashed bananas (200)
TOTAL: 30,052
Obviously, those values are approximate and subject to error. Nonetheless, you get the general idea: even Morgan Spurlock could not prostitute himself enough to actually swallow that much food in one day.
My small contribution to ignorance-fighting. 
How 'bout if I put it all through the blender first, and call it an energy drink.
Can I just say oh sweet baby Jesus, that’s a lot of farkin’ food!
I think while it’s possible, and easy, for most people (say, oh, 90%) to gain 10-20% of their body weight if they overeat and don’t exercise, it’s very, very difficult to get outside of that range either up or down.
The body’s ability to regulate its weight - homeostasis - is nothing short of incredible. Most people maintain weight within a 1-2% range every year, consuming approximately 730,000 kilocalories in that time.
Someone who is super-morbidly obese (with a BMI of 50+) clearly has issues other than just “willpower”. There are co-morbidities that go along with super-morbid obesity that make losing weight very difficult (arthritis, heart disease, COPD, diabetes, etcetera), but under those circumstances, a person with healthy homeostasis would have a diminished appetite.
Clearly, super-morbidity has been around since humans left Africa. Look at the Venus of Willendorf. The artist could not have created that sculpture if they hadn’t seen a woman of beyond-ample proportions. However, I suspect that the number of super-morbidly obese people was much, muuuuuuuuuuuch lower at that time and for long after.
Only the changes in food availability, diet, and environment have enabled the part of our population with the potential for super-morbid obesity to fill in all that weight. And still, most of us couldn’t get to that level if you put a gun to our heads.
I just have to wonder how anyone can afford to get that big, given the price of groceries these days! I mean, wow. That 30,000 calorie list is a lot of food, and someone eats that many calories in a day???
If it is easier for you, according to my calculations, you can get 33,000 calories from about 21 cups of butter.
Not so much. I think I would vomit after one cup of butter.
Can we do it in pints of bitter or something?
My only anecdote to add to this is that I used to work with a morbidly obese person a few years ago. He would bring a shopping bag of food to work each day, including chips and other salty snack foods, energy bars, candy, and fruit. Whenever he was at his desk (most of the time) he was eating while working, pretty much continuously. I can believe that he ate up to 30,000 calories per day.
If other people can do it than you certainly can. I had a teacher that was. The guy was easily 400 pounds and would sweat when it was like 55 degrees outside. I’m betting if you are eating over 10,000 calories a day you’ll get there pretty quickly.
For some reason, when I read this, I remembered Ron White’s routine about being on the little commuter plane.
Have you been sneaking a peek at my diet?