# Do you have a theory about why people are getting more obese? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 23, 2019, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-theory-about-why-people-are-getting-more-obese/843874 "2019-11-23T16:06:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2019, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-theory-about-why-people-are-getting-more-obese/843874/141 "2019-12-02T01:33:18Z")
I read an interesting study about gut flora differences among groups of people, and how even if you put a person with a “Western” gut flora on a healthy diet, they won’t do as well as someone else, since they haven’t gone through a couple of generations of diets that have killed gut flora. This flora is passed on from mother to baby during birth, so if she ate an unhealthy diet, the child will not inherit a healthy gut flora. And there’s this: > **[Why are lab rats and pets getting chubbier?](https://www.ctvnews.ca/why-are-lab-rats-and-pets-getting-chubbier-1.581841)** > > The obesity epidemic may not be confined to just humans. A new study finds that all kinds of species, both wild and domestic, are getting fatter, for reasons that nobody can quite explain. I’m not surprised that pets are getting fatter, since their diets are controlled by humans. But lab animals? > [@](#): > > But lab rats have been getting fatter over the years, even though their diet is tightly controlled and their ration sizes haven’t changed much over the decades. Portion sizes haven’t changed, and neither has the basic description of food, but I suspect the ingredients have changed somewhat. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2019, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-theory-about-why-people-are-getting-more-obese/843874/142 "2019-12-02T02:16:45Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Not even sure if that counts as a whoosh so much just completely missing the point. > > To make it very clear **GreenWyvern** - the point is that there is no virus, or mutation, that has been the vector. Humans as populations are the mostly same humans as we were half a century ago. We are not suddenly having porcine DNA becoming expressed in our brains. If we be pigs we have always been pigs. If the hypothesis is that the obesity epidemic is caused by a lack of will power then there needs to be an explanation offered for why we fairly suddenly have less will power, and why that sudden lack of will power has spread globally, to rich and poor countries both. > > As to your specific question - it is MORE certain demographics in certain countries and different demographics that are more impacted than others. A hypothesis has to be able to fit the facts of the following recent [study](https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002968): > > “People are pigs” does not offer any explanatory power for this. Antibiotics as the major factor also does not seem to, at least at first glance. I think it was a bit from George Carlin- damned if I can find it right now- where he talked about this. How so many modern advancements are meant to make life easier on us. I can hear it in my head, but can’t find where he said it. “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could work a little less? If things were a little bit easier? If you had a little more free time?” many of us don’t have to exert ourselves just to get by anymore. when exercise is something we have to set aside time for and go somewhere to do, we’re doomed to get bigger. and I don’t care about a handful of internet shitheads who claim they work a full time job, take care of 4 kids, make healthy meals for them, and still manage to work out 3 hours a day. They’re lying. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2019, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-theory-about-why-people-are-getting-more-obese/843874/143 "2019-12-02T02:29:26Z")
There is also this American attitude that focuses on treatment of disease rather than prevention - that would rather have 9 stitches late than one stitch in time. Eat what you want, smoke what you want, drink what you want, and then treat the diabetes/cancer/heart disease when it comes. It has gradually shifted towards prevention of late, IMHO, but not enough. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2019, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-theory-about-why-people-are-getting-more-obese/843874/144 "2019-12-02T02:36:13Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > I think it was a bit from George Carlin- damned if I can find it right now- where he talked about this. How so many modern advancements are meant to make life easier on us. I can hear it in my head, but can’t find where he said it. “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could work a little less? If things were a little bit easier? If you had a little more free time?” > > many of us don’t have to exert ourselves just to get by anymore. when exercise is something we have to set aside time for and go somewhere to do, we’re doomed to get bigger. and I don’t care about a handful of internet shitheads who claim they work a full time job, take care of 4 kids, make healthy meals for them, and still manage to work out 3 hours a day. They’re lying. quoting myself- I just saw a commercial for a “Braava Jet.” A robot to do your mopping for you. yeah. we can’t even be arsed to do housework anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2019, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-theory-about-why-people-are-getting-more-obese/843874/145 "2019-12-02T02:50:10Z")
I see processed food has been mentioned, but I’m not certain that it has yet been pointed out that the American sugar industry purposefully promoted the idea that nutritional fat was what caused heart problems. Thus, food could be promoted as “low fat”, and therefore “healthy”, while it was loaded with sugar and therefore still palatable. > **[How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat (Published 2016)](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html)** > > Newly discovered documents show that the sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960s to shape the debate around heart disease, sugar and fat. All that sugar consumption was a primary catalyst for the spike in obesity in America, and I’m sure that exporting the American diet overseas has led to similar problems elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2019, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-theory-about-why-people-are-getting-more-obese/843874/146 "2019-12-02T14:46:35Z")
> [@Kimera757](#): > > I read an interesting study about gut flora differences among groups of people, and how even if you put a person with a “Western” gut flora on a healthy diet, they won’t do as well as someone else, since they haven’t gone through a couple of generations of diets that have killed gut flora. This flora is passed on from mother to baby during birth, so if she ate an unhealthy diet, the child will not inherit a healthy gut flora. > > And there’s this: > > [Lab rats and pets getting chubbier? | CTV News](https://www.ctvnews.ca/why-are-lab-rats-and-pets-getting-chubbier-1.581841) > > I’m not surprised that pets are getting fatter, since their diets are controlled by humans. But lab animals? > > Portion sizes haven’t changed, and neither has the basic description of food, but I suspect the ingredients have changed somewhat. That’s fascinating. The actual study [here](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2010.1890). Yeah, easy to explain away the pets and feral animal as exposed to more human waste food of higher waterever … but the lab animals? That is weird. In the lab animal a 6 to 12% increase in body weight per decade. The conclusion of the article: > [@](#): > > …There are multiple conceivable explanations for these observations. Feral rats could be increasing in weight because of selective predation on smaller animals [22,23] or because just as human real wealth and food consumption have increased in the United States, rats which presumably largely feed on our refuse, may also be essentially richer. But these factors cannot account for the findings in the laboratory animals that are on highly controlled diets, which have varied minimally over the last several decades. These animals are typically fed ad libitum, so if weight increases are attributable to increases in food consumption (which is possible), it is difficult to understand why animals in controlled environments on diets of constant composition are consuming more food today than in past decades. By contrast, one could hypothesize that better veterinary or husbandry care in laboratory and companion animals and better medical care in humans could be contributing to population level increases in body weight, but this cannot explain weight increases in feral rats. Our finding of greater weight gain among laboratory animals could also be explained by changes in animal husbandry standards, such as those imposed by the Animal Welfare Act, over the past 30 years. Though it is certainly not necessary that there be a single explanation for all of these population level increases nor even a single explanation for each individual population, it is intriguing to consider whether there are any factors that could conceivably account for weight increases in all of these populations. … They speculate a possible hypothetical impact of: environmental endocrine-disruptors; or specific infectious agents; epigenetic changes; or the impact of climate change. I’d add that this would also be consistent with the antibiotics leading to altered gut microbiota hypothesis. Both pets and laboratory animals are both treated with antibiotics and exposed to antibiotics in their foodstuffs in similar ways as humans are. Feral animals in our waste food stream. _Very_ interesting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-a-theory-about-why-people-are-getting-more-obese/843874.md?page=7)