OP ignores a basic scientific principle: the idea of controls.
Compare people of Asian descent born in Asia vs born elsewhere. And compare 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation people of Asian descent in non-Asian cultures. In the US because of the policies that discriminated heavily against immigration from East Asian nations until historically recently, this is made a bit harder but not impossible.
And indeed, the early evidence is that for foreign born Asian Americans, BMI increases with the length of residence in the US compared to their peers who did not immigrate. And the effect appears more pronounced for those born in the US than immigrants.
And for those born two generations or more ago, Asia wasn’t like Europe or the US. Food, while available in sufficient quantities in most countries, was hardly plentiful for everybody. And that’s something we’re seeing now. With the increasing availability of western style fast food, BMI is increasing in Asian countries.
Take a look at South vs North Korea. The average height of a South Korean male is almost a foot greater than his North Korean counterpart. That’s due solely to improved nutrition.
TLDR; comparing apples to oranges is a mug’s game.
Well, actually, there is increasing evidence of epigenetic effects to the point the expression of genes of children born decades after some traumatic effect (drought, famine, etc) can be affected and passed down even to their children. Their genes aren’t themselves changed but the expression of them definitely can be.
The evidence is extremely weak. The overhyped studies that purport to show this are poorly controlled, Lamarckian transgenerational epigenetic inheritance has never been demonstrated in humans. It has been shown in mice in certain circumstances, so perhaps it can happen in humans. Never say never in biology. But there’s no evidence whatsoever that it’s a significant process.
Epigenetics has been a hot field, and is perenially overhyped in the press, not least because it enables the tedious “Darwin was wrong” type headlines. Part of the problem is that transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (Lamarckism) is often conflated with the role of epigenetics with straightforward gene regulation, switching genes on an off in response to the environment. The former has not been proven, the latter is blindingly obvious. Of course we respond to the environment. The lead in to that article makes exactly that error, as these articles always do:
The blindingly obvious: Of course identical twins can look different, if they live in completely different environments, eat different diets as a trivial example. Who could possibly imagine that gene expression doesn’t respond to environmental cues?
Conflated with the unproven:
Could your eating habits during puberty have an impact on the genetic makeup of your grandkids? Perhaps, but there’s no convincing evidence for this. (And of course it’s misstated, since he’s talking about epigenetics he should say gene expression, not genetic makeup.)
Before speculating on why Asian women lack muscle relative to American women, wouldn’t it be a good idea to see if this is in fact true? Does anyone have any data beyond a few pics and anecdotes?
More recent (pdf) - Asian females are a “special subgroup” in regards to higher percent body fat (which also reads as less percent body muscle mass) while having lower BMIs.
So it’s not a completely crazy observation. The answers given, a mix of ethnic biological predisposition to certain body builds and an even more ingrained female cultural beauty standard of skinny as opposed to curvy, seem likely right to me.
I’m not sure what to make of this post no woman has ever lifted anything close to a 900 pound deadlift. From my googling the record female deadlift is 573lbs and the male record is slightly over 1102 lbs. Where are you coming up with this information?
HA! I’ll see your 17 years and raise you with my 30! Wait? Can it really be that I’ve lived in Asia for 30 years now? Yup. Damn. And it’s been something like 38 years since I first came here.
Anyway, I agree with you on your points, including the question of marrying a “girl.” That made me cringe. Concerning the claim that Asian women stay away from sweets, East Asian women love their desserts (for some reason men aren’t supposed to enjoy sweets) as well but portions are quite different in the US. My kids were knocked away with the size of the ice cream serving in America.
Note that the claim that it’s due to an “improved nutrition” is also incorrect. The heights and weights in North Korea are decreasing because of insufficient food now compared to before.
[QUOTE=DSeid;21265048So it’s not a completely crazy observation. The answers given, a mix of ethnic biological predisposition to certain body builds and an even more ingrained female cultural beauty standard of skinny as opposed to curvy, seem likely right to me.[/QUOTE]
Interestingly, my experience has been that the ingrained female beauty standard of skinny comes more from women than men. I have middle school students who are thin and complain about how fat they are. Adolescent boys are more likely to talk about video games.
OTOH, Japan has a problem with middle age men becoming more overweight in contrast to women who are not as much. Rates of obesity are still quite low for both sexs.
I lived in Japan in the 1980’s and the majority of adults were definitely not overweight, but the kids were beginning to become so. Quite a few tubby little kiddies around town. I gather that the problem follows the other Asian countries as they get affluent.
As for build, east Asians tend to have a lighter build and with less pronounced differences between the sexes, aka more androgynous. But note that word “tend”. There are also regional differences; northern Chinese can be very big and muscular looking. As for the other Asians, there is a huge variety on the Indian subcontinent. The Sikhs in particular are definitely not androgynous.
Strength? They may not always look muscular, but they can be very strong.
As for genetic factors from famine, etc., I seem to recall that the kids of those where directly affected by the “hunger winter” in the Netherlands in early 1945 were born smaller and with some health problems, but curiously, some of this was retained in their children. But I would suggest that you Google that for the exact details.
The original post was offensive in the way that so many posts on the Dope are, in that they pay some superficial lip service to a “question” when the real point is to discuss the attractiveness of young women, with links to pictures. Seems like if men want to discuss women’s bodies as objects – which apparently many really really really want to do, since they try so hard to work it into every conversation – they should go do that on a forum which does not purport to cater to all genders.
My post “best answer” in response to the tapeworm comment was meant to indicate applause for derailing the hidden intent of the OP very succinctly. If it was taken amiss, I apologize.
As Riemann pointed out above, the studies for subsequent generation epigenetic transmission of the impacts of various sorts of trauma is not quite as solid as media hype makes it out to be. One example here of how doubts come up after the initial attention and get less play. Teasing things out is … complicated.
To me it appears like the customs see to value a very child like appearance of Asian women. Small frame, small feet, small breast, and low visible muscularity would be part of that. If this has held for centuries, which with the custom of foot binding seems to be the case, perhaps genetics have shifted in that direction with the desirability of a partner pushing natural selection.
The women in photos 2 & 3 don not have all natural buttocks. #2 appears to be a BBL, #3 is most likely implants because of the high conical projection. #1 is the only natural butt.