# How do people get so fat?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [October 14, 2009, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763 "2009-10-14T08:22:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 8
### Author:  [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/141 "2009-10-17T01:58:13Z")
I had a peculiar hypothesis on obesity.
I believe that certain people are genetically predispositioned to derive more pleasure from food than normal. For obese people, their caudate nucleus shines brighter than the sun when presented with delicious treats. It isn’t the desire to eat, but the warm rush of happiness while eating that keeps them addicted. In the past, obesity was treated with[dextroamphetamine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dextroamphetamine) and was effective. The drug is now used to treat screaming children. How times have changed.
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### Author:  [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/142 "2009-10-17T02:01:37Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Nobody is arguing to the contrary. It’s thermodynamics; the human body can’t create fat (stored energy) out of nothing.
Actually, I am. I don’t think the laws of thermodynamics apply to an organism as complicated as a human body - within limits. Obviously if a person reduces calories to starvation level, they will lose weight. They will not necessarily burn fat - as any doctor familiar with the eating disordered can tell you. Someone can be starving nearly to death, very thin with wasted muscles, reduced bone mass, failing organs, hair falling out - and still maintain a normal _percentage_ of body fat.
Carbohydrates and the insulin response they cause make some people’s bodies store energy derived from carbohydrates in their fat cells, and hold onto it tenaciously. No matter how high or low their actual calorie intake, macronutrients are what make the difference in someone’s body composition, and often, in their overall weight as well.
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### Author:  [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/143 "2009-10-17T05:38:57Z")
> [@fluiddruid](#):
>
> Cite?
>
> Nobody is arguing to the contrary.
No, that’s exactly what **rhubarbarin** is saying. Because he can eat whatever he likes and not gain weight, that means \*everyone \*can eat whatever they like and it won’t affect their weight!
:rolleyes:
(My BMI has always been underweight. None of my family members are obese or more than a few pounds overweight. I love sweet & salty foods. But I always eat very small portions, have my entire life. It’s now almost physically impossible for me to have a lot of food at once. I always have leftovers from restaurant meals unless the portion was something very tiny. If people eat less & exercise more, they’ll lose weight. It’s really very simple.)
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### Author:  [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/144 "2009-10-17T06:29:06Z")
> [@BrandonR](#):
>
> And I have no prejudice. It’s just I find trouble sympathizing for people who essentially claim they have no control over what they pick up and insert into their mouth, chew, and then swallow.
Yes you do have prejudice.
I don’t want to repeat myself, especially within just a few days, so…
[Information](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11660171&postcount=257)
[Something](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11663613&postcount=291) to think about
Some [more](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11663498&postcount=287)…and a little [more](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11672183&postcount=330).
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### Author:  [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/145 "2009-10-17T06:38:44Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#):
>
> Calories in=calories out has nothing to do with what my body looks like, so why should it apply to everyone else?
It doesn’t have nothing to do with it, but it’s not the simple equation most people would have you believe.
Some people’s bodies are really good at dumping excess calories. Other people are amazing at storing them. And what constitutes “excess” differs for everyone. And that’s just one small simple part of the big picture of obesity, which very much includes a whole lot of people eating a whole lot of calories. But you can’t ignore _ **why** _ they do, and that’s what the OP and a lot of other people want to do, is ignore the “why?” Is it psychological? Emotional? Chemical? Biological? Genetic? A combination? a & C for Joe, B & D for Jill?
Actually, the OP and others don’t ignore “why” they make simplistic, false and fundamentally ridiculous assumptions about “why”, present them as a fact, then ask questions.
It’s not possible to address the OP directly, because there are too many faulty assumptions being made about the experience of the obese. That’s the first thing that needs to be cleared up, because as long as the OP thinks the way he does about the obese experience and decisions, and feelings, and thoughts, and attitudes, and behaviors… no matter what is presented, it will be filtered through that erroneous prism, making it a pointless exercise.
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### Author:  [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/146 "2009-10-17T07:20:37Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Maybe I’d think otherwise if this country had always been this fat, but guess what? It hasn’t. You don’t even need to travel more than 20-30 years back to see that.
It used to be quite common for doctors to prescribe “diet pills” for overweight patients. Just about all of these medications have been shown to be extremely unhealthy in the long run, even more unhealthy than overweight.
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/147 "2009-10-17T07:33:24Z")
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> Or the First Law of Thermodynamics.
Because humans are Bunsen burners. What **rhubarbarin** said:
> [@](#):
>
> There have been studies done where subjects calories were reduced (never to below ‘starvation level’ where the body starts eating muscle and reducing organ function). There have been studies where subjects calories were increased. In all studies, weight loss or gain is highly individual and unpredictable, and the human body will generally do whatever it can to maintain a stable weight. Disregarding ‘calories in, calories out’, it will slow what functions it needs to to keep weight on in lean times, and burn calories however it can (increased energy, increased body temperature, faster and less efficient digestion) when overeating.
I am what many people consider slightly overweight. I am 6’2" and weigh 200 pounds. I have weighed 200 pounds for ten years. During that ten-year time, I was: a poor undergraduate eating crap food; a very poor undergraduate literally doing dinner at Dairy Queen where I worked because I had to go directly from school to work and stay there until 11; a gainfully employed person eating large quantities of fruits and vegetables; on the Atkins diet; no longer on the Atkins diet because it made me a rampaging bitch; eating Oreos like they were going out of style; no longer buying sweets of any kind; drinking juice; not drinking juice; eating pasta; not eating pasta; going to the gym, cycling, and doing yoga and Pilates, and not doing any of those things.
Throughout _all_ of those vicissitudes I have continued to weigh within ten pounds of 200 lbs, with 200 being by far the mode. So finally I said, the hell with it, this is what I weigh, it will continue being what I weigh for the indefinite future, so I’m going to eat what causes me to feel healthy and do the physical activity that promotes stamina and flexibility, and that’s an end to it.
I’ve also resolved to stop listening to self-righteous people who choose to talk about my body as if it’s a sin.
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/148 "2009-10-17T07:41:25Z")
On a related subject, I’m very fond of this slideshow: [The BMI Project](http://kateharding.net/bmi-illustrated/). It’s photos of people in the various BMI categories – and what they look like may surprise some people, given what we’re led to believe about weight.
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### Author:  [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/149 "2009-10-17T08:17:30Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> I’m 6’2". When I was 23 years old I weighed 190 and looked great. Three months ago I weighed 280 and looked like shit. Today I weigh about 240 (haven’t been on the scale in a few days, but probably about that) and look better, but not good enough.
>
> In pricnciple losing weight is simple; Eat less, exercise more. That program works, period, end of story; it is the only way to lose weight and it is invariably effective. But it’s hard. Changing a lifetime of habit _is insanely hard_; it takes really looking at what you’re doing, thinking about things you’ve never thought about before. It took a lot of factors adding up to finally convince me to make a change. I couldn’t have lost 40 pounds in 3 months five years ago.
Congrats, Rickjay, truly.
But your experience of the last few months is the same experience just about everyone who ever lived and ever got fat has had. And depending on how long they’ve been fat, they’ve had it many, many, many times. Rare is the fat person who has never lost weight, or even never lost all the weight and been thin. Most fat people have lost hundreds, even thousands of pounds.
When you have taken off that extra weight, and kept it off for… 5 years straight, you will have acheived something truly unusual and exceptional, something which only a tiny percentage of people achieve. And if you keep it off for the rest of your life and live to be old…well, you will be downright extraordinary.
Let us know.
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### Author:  [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/150 "2009-10-17T08:27:47Z")
By way of example, there is nothing at all unusual about Oprah. Nor about Kirstie Alley. Their stories are painfully common.
Fat people pretty much never just buy into being fat on a permanent, ongoing basis, conrary to popular perception. And it is because they yo-yo that they end up so incredibly fat eventually. You teach your body to get better and better at holding on to what it has by starving it, so the same amount of food will make you get bigger next time. That cycling and your body’s reaction also drives your desires. So the more you try to impose strict control, the more difficult it becomes to do it.
But hey… so what? it’s jsut a matter of eating less and moving more. Just do it.:rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/151 "2009-10-17T08:47:30Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#):
>
> Actually, I am. I don’t think the laws of thermodynamics apply to an organism as complicated as a human body - within limits. Obviously if a person reduces calories to starvation level, they will lose weight. They will not necessarily burn fat - as any doctor familiar with the eating disordered can tell you. Someone can be starving nearly to death, very thin with wasted muscles, reduced bone mass, failing organs, hair falling out - and still maintain a normal _percentage_ of body fat.
But the fat has to come from somewhere to start with, though. Yes, it’s true that even a very fat person will burn muscle, organ, even bone if exposed to starvation conditions, but the percentage of fat people is higher today in the Western world, and in America in particular. That doesn’t seem to be accidental.
That’s why it’s not as simple as just genetics. Some people store energy extremely efficiently; when they are exposed to a “modern” Western diet and a routine of restricted exercise (e.g. working in an office, not toiling as a peasant) they get way fatter than their brethren. Thus there are two ways of looking at the problem: dealing with the cultural and societal issues that cause weight gain, like increasing access of healthy, low calorie foods and helping people find time and ways of exercising, and medically attempting to treat why some people store fat so efficiently (we’re not really all that good at this second part yet except perhaps surgically in very extreme cases).
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### Author:  [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/152 "2009-10-17T09:16:28Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#):
>
> So fat people should be shamed into keeping themselves constantly hungry (even though there is no science that provides any evidence that calorie restriction leads to long-term weight loss of any degree)
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Calorie restriction doesn’t lead to long term weight loss? What in the world do you imagine DOES lead to long term weight loss?
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/153 "2009-10-17T12:44:29Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#):
>
> It’s really very simple.
When ever I see this posted, whether it is about medicine, politics or religion, it is a cue to dismiss what ever argument came before.
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### Author:  [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/154 "2009-10-17T14:22:01Z")
> [@fluiddruid](#):
>
> But the fat has to come from somewhere to start with, though. Yes, it’s true that even a very fat person will burn muscle, organ, even bone if exposed to starvation conditions, but the percentage of fat people is higher today in the Western world, and in America in particular. That doesn’t seem to be accidental.
>
> That’s why it’s not as simple as just genetics. Some people store energy extremely efficiently; when they are exposed to a “modern” Western diet and a routine of restricted exercise (e.g. working in an office, not toiling as a peasant) they get way fatter than their brethren. Thus there are two ways of looking at the problem: dealing with the cultural and societal issues that cause weight gain, like increasing access of healthy, low calorie foods and helping people find time and ways of exercising, and medically attempting to treat why some people store fat so efficiently (we’re not really all that good at this second part yet except perhaps surgically in very extreme cases).
The carbohydrate hypothesis explains fat Americans perfectly. Rising levels of overweight and obesity coincide with the steadily rising amount of sugar/sweeteners (corn syrups) consumed per head, per year here - 160 at last count, up from about 100 in 1950. That’s not even counting how much flour and other starchy foods most people eat. I am surrounded by people that eat practically nothing but carbohydrates, all day long. Many are fat. Most don’t eat more, portion-wise, than I.
Obesity is also epidemic in many parts of Africa, where it’s possible for some people to get enough to eat even if it is low quality (living on porridge, bread and sugar), but where very few are inactive.
Speaking of which, nearly every person I know here in my neighborhood who makes their living with a physically challenging job is at least moderately overweight (contractors, landscapers, factory workers).
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### Author:  [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/155 "2009-10-17T14:23:05Z")
> [@Mosier](#):
>
> I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Calorie restriction doesn’t lead to long term weight loss? What in the world do you imagine DOES lead to long term weight loss?
So far, it has been proven over and over that NOTHING DOES. 95% of people who lose weight gain it all back and more within 5 years.
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### Author:  [@BrandonR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrandonR)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/156 "2009-10-17T15:00:46Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#):
>
> So far, it has been proven over and over that NOTHING DOES. 95% of people who lose weight gain it all back and more within 5 years.
Because they obviously end up reverting to their old eating habits! :smack:
Calorie restriction, if kept up over the long term, does work! Period. I can’t believe you’re arguing this point. What’s more likely here, that thermodynamics is being violated by fat people and laws of energy conservation don’t hold up for them, or that people who diet end up reverting back to their old eating habits, regaining the weight they initially lost? You’re giving the average dieter way too much credit for willpower. That’s not to say keeping up a diet long-term is an easy thing (I know it’s extremely difficult), but that doesn’t change the fact that they _do_ work given sufficient willpower from the dieter.
It’s the inherent problem with diets that make you give up foods. Eventually the temptation is enough to make you revert back to your old eating habits, which is why most dietitians recommend limiting the foods you like, and not giving them up altogether.
I really don’t get why you’re trying so hard to find a scapegoat for the obesity epidemic… The cause is obvious. Case in point: every Tuesday and Thursday I see a large women leaving a classroom at my university carrying a 2-liter bottle of Coke and drinking it as if it were a 20-oz from a vending machine. This is the same women who had a stroke in the middle of the room and had to have medics take her to the hospital. Do you think that medical emergency snapped her out of drinking from 2L bottles of soda? Of course not.
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### Author:  [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/157 "2009-10-17T15:04:03Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#):
>
> So far, it has been proven over and over that NOTHING DOES. 95% of people who lose weight gain it all back and more within 5 years.
Yes, but that’s because long-term calorie restriction is very difficult to maintain, not because it doesn’t work. If someone can manage to stay on a calorie restricted diet for a long time, they will lose weight, there’s no question about that. Right? You’re not really trying to make a case that someone can live long term on, say, 500 calories a day and stay fat?
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/158 "2009-10-17T15:32:34Z")
> [@Athena](#):
>
> Yes, but that’s because long-term calorie restriction is very difficult to maintain, not because it doesn’t work.
If it’s so difficult to maintain that scarcely anyone can do it for as much as five years, then it’s not much of a solution, is it?
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/159 "2009-10-17T15:37:49Z")
For interest’s sake: [If your pants are above a size 14, you’d better hope they’re flame retardant:](http://kateharding.net/2008/01/01/if-your-pants-are-above-a-size-14-youd-better-hope-theyre-flame-retardant/)
> [@](#):
>
> It’s actually, come to think of it, more of a variation on the “There are no fatties in concentration camps” argument. Because of course the problem is, “fewer calories than you need to maintain your current weight” varies widely from person to person, and in many cases, it ends up being fewer calories than your body needs, period. But this goes right back to what Arwen was saying: if you plateau while dieting, if your body stubbornly refuses to lose any more weight after you’ve dropped to 1,200, then 1,000, then 800, and in some cases as low as 500 calories a day, you are not absolved of the obligation to lose more weight. You’re simply found guilty of lying about what you eat and/or how much you exercise. Because if you were really eating that little and exercising that much, you would still be losing! Because human bodies do work exactly like bunsen burners, and there aren’t 85 squillion variables affecting how different people process the same number of calories, duh! You’re just not doing what we told you to do, you BIG FAT LIAR!
>
> When it’s just one poorly trained, batshit crazy weight loss counselor, or just one article telling you you’re full of shit, the consequences aren’t such a big deal. But they become a very big deal when it’s [a doctor, or a series of doctors](http://fathealth.wordpress.com/), insisting that you can’t be telling the truth about your eating and exercise habits, and they won’t do anything for you until you knock off the denial and start burning more calories than you eat. The only way to clear your good name — and get some attention to your actual symptoms — at that point is to lose weight. And if the only way to lose weight is to literally starve yourself, so be it. Those are your choices: starve, or [don’t come back](http://fathealth.wordpress.com/2007/07/16/welcome-to-fat-health-care-horror-stories/). Exercising moderately and having a healthy relationship with food is not an option if you remain fat while doing those things, because that can mean being [denied surgery](http://fathealth.wordpress.com/2008/01/01/fat-discrimination-in-kidney-transplants/), [misdiagnosed time and again](http://fathealth.wordpress.com/2007/11/16/its-only-been-in-the-last-year-ive-found-a-doctor-that-looks-at-me-as-a-person/), told that [your debilitating pain can only be cured by strenuous exercise](http://fathealth.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/crippling-pain-try-strenuous-exercise/), told [you don’t deserve to have children](http://fathealth.wordpress.com/2007/07/19/it-would-be-unethical-to-help-a-fat-woman-get-pregnant/), et fucking cetera.
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### Author:  [@BrandonR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrandonR)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2009, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/160 "2009-10-17T16:01:52Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#):
>
> If it’s so difficult to maintain that scarcely anyone can do it for as much as five years, then it’s not much of a solution, is it?
Sure it is, because a proper diet doesn’t mean giving up the foods you love and it doesn’t mean starving yourself. A long-term diet shouldn’t even be called a diet, it’s a lifestyle change… Meaning you never give it up or stop it. You fundamentally change what you eat and how you eat it.
“Diets” don’t work because they imply a temporary restriction on what you eat, and when that restriction is over, guess what’s going to happen? You’re going to gain all the weight right back. Portion sizes and the type of food we eat in this country are two of the main problems.
And regarding your pro-fat blog links, “fat prejudice” is a bunch of BS. Obesity is a condition, not a disease caused by bacteria or a virus. No skinny person wakes up one day, is diagnosed with “obesity,” and then is helpless while weight just piles on endlessly. It’s a self-inflicted condition, just like alcoholism or drug addiction. So when obese people start whining about airlines charging them for two seats since their girth _takes up two seats_, I can’t say I feel too sympathetic. Part of the problem is making up terms like “fat prejudice” to make them feel even more like victims (part of the ridiculous fat acceptance movement). Hey I have an idea, why not start a laziness acceptance movement? Why are lazy people discriminated against in today’s society? :rolleyes: It’s ridiculous. **Whatever happened to self-responsibility?**
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