Just curious about obese people, and the causes.
What percentage of overweight people are fat because they eat too much and don’t exercise enough, as opposed to being overweight for medical reasons?
What medical reasons can lead to you being overweight?
Is there such a thing as “big boned”? How big can your bones get?
Just to point out the two are not mutually exclusive. See Prader-Willi Syndrome; and I am overweight due to lack of exercise … because I’m in a wheelchair (Spina Bifida).
I doubt if you will get much in the way of factual answers, as it would be very difficult to separate the too.
But I can tell you that, barring a few very unlikely scenarios, it is inmpossible to put on weight if you simply burn more calories than you consume. Matter cannot be generated out of thin air.
So, the reason people are overweight is because they are consuming more food than they are burning. In a lot of cases this is simply due to greed (not an IMHO, a fact), but of course there are also many cases where medical problems prevent people from exercising. Being in a wheelchair is one obvious case, but there are lots of reasons people may be less mobile than is healthy.
So, to sum up - people that complain that it’s “their glands” as they slob out on the sofa with a bucket of Doritos are deluding themselves. But yes, some people can be overweight as an indirect result of a medical problem. As for figures, it is surely a matter of opinion, unless anyone knows different.
I’m overweight because I ate too much and allowed myself to get out of shape, although I must say that it seems that I have a “natural” weight. I’ve pretty much stabilized at around 250 pounds, and I have to make an effort to either gain or lose weight from here.
I would bet a considerable sum of money that most (not all) obesity results from my situation, a combination of excess food and abject laziness.
I try that reasoning in the “Where did the Universe Come From” threads to justify a Creator, --doesn`t work.
Many studies have in fact shown that thin people consume more calories than overweight people on average, they simply burn more of them. There was a diet a few years ago called, I think, “The California Diet and Exercise Program”. It recommended cutting calories and then gradually increasing calories as your daily exercise level increased. By the time you were on the maintenance diet you were consuming more calories per day than before you started to diet.
What you will find: A complete lack of evidence to demonstrate that ‘glands’ or ‘metabolism’ affect any great number of people. Yes, you can enhance your metabolism to burn more calories naturally, by - ironically - getting in shape and staying there. Yes, the rich get richer.
What we are talking about here are the masses of people who eat more calories than they burn, which is decision-based.
The human body needs a paltry amount of calories to survive at it’s ‘thin’ point. For a small woman, we’re talking 1400 calories/day, and for a medium sized middle age guy, a scant 1800…amounts found in most lunches or dinners for many people. When you realize how efficient the body is, you realize the challenge. Oh, pigged out a a fast food joint and want to ‘burn it off’? Hope you are up for a marathon…and that is not an exagerration.
You will get an overweight crusader who will pop in to reference some pseduo study that showed someone ate 1200 calories and maintained the 350 pound girth. Ask yourself if that is LIKELY to be true, and then ask how LIKElY that is going to be the case for all the obese people you encounter.
All you need to know is that when the stomache is stapled, or there is a gastric bypass, or someone’s jaw is wired shut, they lose weight. As was mentioned, no one is absorbing calories from the air via osmosis.
There is also a psychological component to eating too, which can be strong enough to constitute compulsive overeating or a food addiction. This could be considered a medical (mental health) reason for someone being overweight. It’s not an excuse to continue this behavior, but it takes different treatment from simply diet and exercise.
I often wonder about this myself. Personally, I’m 6’1" and weigh 230 pounds. That sounds pretty heavy, but if you see me in person I look pretty healthy. In fact, I’m borderline obese according to the standards set by the U.S. government.
I wonder how many people are considered overweight in these statistics we are fed that are really in my situation, being healthy and looking fit even though have an unusually high body weight for their height. Most people I ask to guess my weight put me in the 190lb range.
I guess in my situation, big boned would be fitting, whatever that means! I’m a bit broader than the average person, but I don’t know if I’d say my bones are any bigger…
Certified Fat Person™ checking in.
I got up to my all time highest weight because I never exercised and I ate ungodly amounts of carbohydrates (mostly sugar) because it turns out I had a metabolic problem I didn’t know I had. Now I work out regularly and do Atkins and the weight is flying off.
As far as big boned, yes it exists. I don’t have football player shoulders but my shoulders are much broader than other women I know. Despite me still being overweight, I will never, ever be petite, or even considered “medium” sized. I’ll be surprised if I’m less than a size 14 when I’m at my goal weight. It’s just the way I’m built 
Funnily enough, I never thought of big boned like this. I always assumed that big bones were wider than normal bones (i.e. the cross section was bigger), so it took up more space inside you, and made you look fatter on the outside. It never occurred to me that this referred to the size of your frame. I blame Cartman for this misunderstanding.
I can see how having a bigger frame means you’re a higher size than you should be, but I don’t think this can really be mistaken for fat.
Body weight is only one guideline, and a very basic one at that.
Body fat analysis is more revealing, and controls for bone structure, height and other factors.
Well… I am fat because I eat too much and get little exercise. I am in the process of reversing it though, and am about halfway there. Also, some people do have slower metabolisms than others. My stepfather eats at least twice what I do, and is stick thin. As far as I can see, he also get very little exercise. It pisses me off a little, I think 
I have broader shoulders than any woman I know too! And really long arms. When I bought a demin jacket a few years back, I had to get a men’s 46 so that I could raise my arms at all.
But anyway. I am fat also. 5’8, 195 (I just weighed myself this morning and I lost another 5 pounds, woohoo!) and I would venture to say bigboned as well. I’m in the same boat as EnginNerd, I carry my weight rather well, but I’m definitely overweight. But I got fat, not by sitting on my ass and eating too much, but by taking medication. When I was 16, I got put on 3 different anti-depressents and mood stabilizers, and birth control too. Then the pounds started creeping up. I looked in the mirror one day and realized I was fat. Some people have suggested I was eating too much because I was depressed, but I’d been like that for years before I got diagnosed and didn’t gain weight. Later on I looked into all these drugs and found out that weight gain is a common side effect for all of them. If they had told me that before, I wouldn’t have taken them. Sure, they made me all happy, but they gave me a real problem to be depressed about. I stopped taking them years ago and when I did, I stopped gaining weight. I’ve been holding steady at 210 since then, until recently.
As for the big boned thing. Yes, there are varying sizes of bones, and some people’s have a greater circumference than others. You can try it at home by measuring your wrist. But bones can’t get big enough to account for some people’s weight problems. But I definitely have larger bones than average. I look at pictures of myself when I was 135 pounds (not even the lowest healthy weight for me) and I look anorexic because I’m all boney. So this time around, I’m going for a higher weight in my healthy rage. Years of being fat have made me realize that bony women are gross and the hot ones have some meat on them.
I believe that muscle weighs more than fat … so you can’t always look at your weigh in isolation. How muscular are you? My weight always surprises people - I’m 5’10" and I weigh 145 pounds (I’m female) but people always assume I weigh less. I work out/run/sail/dance so I have lots of muscle (not bulk but definitely muscle) and when I decide to flex my arms to show why I weigh what I do, people are surprised at how much muscle I have
I think the Body Mass Index (where we get all these statistics about half the population being overweight) is a very bad way of actually calculating whether or not someone is overweight or obese. It’s basically a simply mathematical equation, and it doesn’t take into account factors such as how much of your weight comes from muscle and how much comes from fat.
For example, take the case of former heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield. He is listed as being 6’2" tall (I would say he’s much closer to 6’) and he weighs around 220 pounds when he fights. His BMI says that he’s on the upper side of being overweight and that he’s almost obese. If you look at the guy, you can see this is simply ridiculous. He’s in better shape than, I would say, 99% of the American population, and yet he’s counted as being unhealthily fat.
Or even take my situation. I’m around 6’2" and 190 pounds. By the BMI, I’m about .5 points from being overweight. If you saw me, you’d say that’s ridiculous. In fact, I’m a lot closer to being skinny (as in, I need to put on some weight) than I am overweight.
So don’t trust the BMI to accurately say whether someone is overweight or not.
You are hearby invited to bite me.
and
Um, pardon? What’s the difference between the weight of muscle or fat?
How can one weigh more than the other?
One pound of muscle weighs the same as one pound of fat: One pound.
They’re using weight as a shorthand for denisty. Muscle has a greater density than fat so a pound of muscle takes up a smaller volume than does fat. Fat is about 0.9 g/cm^3 versus muscle which is 1.1 g/cm^3. So a pound of fat takes up approximately 31 cubic inches and a pound of muscle is 25 cubic inches.
Having a lot of muscle will make you weigh more than an identically sized person who has a greater percentage of bodyfat.
heh
And a pound of feathers weighs the same as a pound of gold.
Maybe it will help you to think of how the pound of muscle and the pound of fat take up different amounts of space.
I’d say my weight accurately reflects how I eat and how much I exercise. But I will express some sincere sympathy for those who do have glandular/ metabolism disorders that cause them to put on weight. I babysat for a 10 year old, 150 pound kid. His body definitely metabolized food in a different way, and he had been like that since birth. Not 150 lbs, obviously, but much larger than average w/ more fat.