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Born with Couch Potato Genes?
An anonymous reader writes "Science Daily is reporting on an experiment that suggests that an individual's activity level shows a genetic basis. From the article: 'Research conducted by scientists at the Oregon National Primate Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University reveals that a person's level of activity is likely an intrinsic property of that individual. [...] Overall, these findings suggest that it is likely to take a significant conscious effort to change one's level of physical activity and override one's intrinsic inclination to be active or inactive. To state it more plainly, if you're a couch potato, suddenly becoming active may be harder than you think,'"
How soon before we can blame everything we do on genetics?
To state it more plainly, if you're a couch potato, suddenly becoming active may be harder than you think,'"
Insensitive clods! It's already hard enough to reach for the remote control!
Oh, great. Things like these always give people a scapegoat; "I'm not lazy, it's my genes." I'm not saying that it not true, but people like "solid" excuses to be even more lazy.
The article summary looks wrong. I don't see anything in TFA itself which indicates that laziness is a result of some genetic factor. All they say is that it's intrinsic to the individual - being a rhesus monkey in this case - that a given individual displays similar activity levels in both a stimulating and a non-stimulating environment.
"...if you're a couch potato, suddenly becoming active may be harder than you think"
No, I've always thought it would be too hard. Why do you think I'm still a couch potato?
How much harder than impossible can you get? :(
Research like this often does more harm than good, in my opinion. Not only does it give people an excuse for their situation, it knocks off part of the drive they might have had to go ahead and change things. Though we admittedly do share many characteristics with the animals studied here, we also have the ability to override many of those with conscious decisionmaking.
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Then again, I see nothing in the article that suggests such behavior/attitudes isn't learned from parents at an early age.
They need to do a lot more study, involving actual humans, twins separated early, adopted children, blah blah blah.
Nothing to see here, move along. (Never thought I'd actually say that on here, but this article is wildly speculative, with little evidence put forth for a true genetic basis. It fully warrants such a comment.)
it is my parents' fault that I'm such a lazy bum. Now I can fwd this link to them.
I'm much more funny, interesting and insightful than the moderators think
I'm giving up on free will.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
....but the fact that we are here is directly related to the fact that our foreforefathers had to run away from scary predators; like tigers and dinosaurs and macrosoft. If they weren't athletic they'd be dead - and therefore we would not be here. SO if its couch-potato in our genes then technically our ancestors would have been bloody lazy. And dino food. Survival of the fittest anyone?
/. would have had ancestors who woulda been too friggin lazy to uh... procreate anyway.
Besides, if it's in the genes then
I love humanity, it is people I hate
Plus, it appears the experiment itself was pretty meaningless, and the conclusions therefrom unsupported. Basically, they observed that some monkeys were active and others weren't, and that the level of activity didn't depend on the amount of space a particular monkey had to be active in. Wow.
The only attempt to change an independent variable appears to be as follows:From this, the scientist concludes:I don't think so. How do we know any particular monkey made an "conscious effort," much less a "significant conscious effort," to change its level of physical activity? Perhaps more fundamentally, there is not evidence the scientists even provided any incentive for the monkeys to do so. Simply putting a monkey in a bigger cage may not have given it any incentive or reason to be more active.
There seems to be an assumption that because they gave a sedentary monkey more space, it should have wanted to be more active, and because it wasn't, in fact, more active, this must be because its inactivity was "an intrinsic property of that individual." The scientist's argument assumes his conclusion. What if the money+ simply did not want to, and indeed had no reason to, move?
Put a banana at the other end of cage, and watch Mr. Sedentary Monkey take off like a rocket.
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Overall, these findings suggest that it is likely to take a significant conscious effort to change one's level of physical activity and override one's intrinsic inclination to be active or inactive.
New!
Pr-escr|ptioN gene therapy delvred r|ght t o y0u r door. 3nl4rg you_R worK ethic by four-00 percnt!
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil... ..and their long lost brother "can't be bothered to do any evil"
Thanks for that. I'd read it, but I can't really be bothered.
The parent poster, little-known Slashdot user UnxMully, tried to beguile unsuspecting readers into believe that the experiment originated at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, both by posting a quote about the OISM and ignoring the fact that TFA not only clearly states that the experiment is being conducted at the Oregon Health & Science University, specifically at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, but was even *originally published on the OHSU website*.
The parent post is a clear example of failing to RTFA or even its headline on Slashdot. The post was not based on a review of the article, nor was its poster expert in the various institutions with the words "Oregon" and "Science" in their names. In fact, the only criterion for creating the parent post was the ability to type. The post should not resurface in a renewed attempt to undermine reading comprehension.
I'd rather trust the Iraqi minister of propaganda than the Slashdot user UnxMully.
We have to believe in free will. We've got no choice!
That was 2 years ago. Over a year and a half, I lost 140 lbs and am a much more active person.
It wasn't easy, but it's definately do-able. Besides, as the saying goes, "If it's easy, it isn't worth doing."
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Problem with the article: Other nations are not so obese. People in the U.S. are much more obese than the citizens of any other nation, with the exception of a few islands where people eat a lot of coconut.
In Brazil, a large percentage of the population has the same genetic background as people in the U.S., because they are immigrants from the same countries. But people in Brazil are not nearly as grotesquely obese.
I'd say the obesity is caused by depression, and the depression is caused by the strong support for violence in the U.S. culture. The U.S. government has killed perhaps 4 million people since the end of the 2nd world war. In the U.S., killing other people is increasingly seen as a way to solve social problems or problems with political disagreement. Killing other people also makes money for families and friends with investments in the weapons and oil business, such as president George W. Bush and vice-president Cheney.
A real couch potato doesn't waste time "thinking" about "suddenly becoming active."
"Honey, after you finish typing my Slashdot comment, will you get me a beer?"
This crap has come up before. I'm thinking of The Bell Curve, by Herrnstein and Murray. They claimed then that a whole raft of things were inherited which have since been debunked. These things included intelligence, financial ability, criminal inclination and etcetera...
Unless they have the evidence, I shall reserve my judgement. This isn't news, just a guess. No matter how educated, this is not news, just a glorified blog report. Flame me if you want, this is a serious criticism.
America's fatness has nothing to do with genes. It's all about TV, Corn Syrup, and McDonalds.
I know lots of Fat people... how can I not? I am an American. I am surrounded by fat people all the time. Hell, I used to BE a fat person, but after losing 70 lbs and becoming the poster-boy for weight loss, I've discovered that it all comes down to one thing:
If you consume fewer calories than you expend, you will lose weight. PERIOD. Of course, there are many ways to go about doing this, and the only sustainable way is to exercise to maintain muscle mass.
The whole idea behind long-term weight loss is to increase your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) by increasing your muscle mass, while at the same time decreasing your caloric intake to below your BMR. That's all it takes. The rate at which you lose weight will be proportional to the delta between your Daily Caloric Intake and your BMR - on average.
One pound of fat contains approximately 3600 calories. So, for example, you consume 200 fewer calories per day than you expend on average, you'll lose one pound of fat every 18 days. Of course, fat is not the only thing you can lose, so weight loss will vary somewhat.
Also, exercise adds to your daily caloric expenditure, which can accelerate weight loss significantly. One might expend 1800 calories by riding a bike 50 miles at a high rate of speed, or expend 800 calories by running 6 miles, or expend 400 calories shoveling snow for an hour.
In any case, what it all boils down to is being aware of the simple fact that you have to get your energy from somewhere, and if you do not get enough energy from the food you eat, your body will turn to its fat stores. It doesn't matter what excuse a fat person uses, whether that be, "It's my glands," or "It's my genes," or whatever. Thermodynamics is LAW, and excuses cannot break it.
When I saw the title, I expected a study involving hundreds of separately adopted twins. 29 female monkeys in cages is a methodological joke. No conclusions can be made about genetics from this study, and the conclusions made should not necessarily be generalized to humans.
The best summary I ever heard of the whole, "Genetics make me fat," argument, is this one:
We have the same genes, by and large, that we had 50 years ago.
This rapid rise in obesity is very, very recent. Yes, change can be difficult, but its not that difficult - this coming from someone who lost 80lbs and went from a couch potato to a long distance runner the "easy" way, by eating less and doing more. No pills/shakes/meetings, just good ol' fashioned exercise. Heck, I don't even eat terribly healthily - just less than I did before. Try it, it works.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Americans are disgustingly obese (as a group). This isn't true of all the others who live in rich modern societies. E.g. Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria. I don't think Americans are the fattest: rich Africans and Arabs tend to be terribly fat.
Some suspect America has more "fat genes" because the people who left for the New World starved through more famines than the more prosperous folks who stayed in the Old World.
We weren't fat in the '50s. Not like we are today. Have we all experienced some massive genetic mutation in the last 50 years? Or could it be a lifestyle change instead? Hmm?
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Sounds like kind of a baited, made-by-TV reaction you had, but...
About 18 months ago she decided she was going to take responsibility for her own weight.
The Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) M.O. of bowing to "a higher power" has always seemed suspicious to me because of the basic premise you're talking about here. AA as an institution has a strong religious side that would cloud any attempt to take responsibility for oneself. You're supposed to give up a big measure of your self-control to God, basically.
I pick my son up from viola lessons sometimes at the church around the corner, and they hold AA meetings there. The two most apparent traits of those meetings are a) the fact that they're dating grounds on a par with college social events; and b) the strong religious overtones.
If the "spiritual" side becomes nothing more than an outside force to which you're ceding control, it's never been clear to me how that'd be any different than shrugging and saying it was in your genes. If anything they encourage you to admit to yourself that you can't change anything without outside help. Then I suppose God is on your side in your attempt to quit -- though the theology of that doesn't make any more sense than saying your genes have changed their minds and want you to be thin and active now...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Jabba perfected the art of the couch potato, now it must be asked how he is able to convince so many rogues and scoundrels to obey his commands from such a slovenly perch?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
So, you killed someone in cold blood, and your parents were murderers too - sorry, bud, you're still going to jail. No amount of genetic "blame" will ever allow us to trust you or your choices.
Steven Pinker did a thorough exploration of this in "The Blank Slate".
Intelligent Design: because MATH is HARD.
They showed him doing some exercise, then pausing to ask his wife to bring him a cherry soda. I thought "perhaps WATER would be a better choice there". Later he was shown eating a bucket of KFC. Hey buddy, try eating some VEGETABLES once in a while. The whole time, he was complaining that his weight was a "genetic problem".
Well if his genetics or at least social disposition lead him to believe that he wanted a cherry soda and a bucket of KFC he had no choice in the matter. Well... He sort of did, but the neurons in his brain automatically fired off saying he needed or at least desired the cherry soda. His mind was simply unable to comprehend the desire for water so it did not happen.
Now saying people have no free will make many people angry and start talking about personal responsibility and he mearly had to choose the water.
Well... If you study Buddhism you will discover there is free will but it doesn't work like that.
Where as the normal free will person will say "I shouldn't drink the cherry soda because it is making me fat." and he will more likley fail to do so because he will come up with a counter reason like "Maybe just this one time" or "I'll drink one now but tommorrow I won't..."
That doesn't solve the problem. Chances are he'll just keep drinking the soda.
The more self-aware Buddhist person will go "I am aware for my desire for cherry soda. This maybe because of my genetics and I know it tastes better than water." and then goes on to meditate or at least rational and seperate themselves from that desire... (And maybe speculates on what makes a cherry soda and water taste the way it does and why he desires one over the other) not the obtainment of cherry soda itself.
It sounds hokey but it works. Or at least better than sheer willpower... But you have to learn a bit more about Buddhist meditation to really understand.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I have found this to be very true, and when I find myself getting lazy, I recall these words, and force myself into action.
Yes, and every time I wake up I want chips, but becasue I know that if I have a bag of chips in the house, no matter the size, that I'll eat the whole thing in a day I just stopped buying them. There's nothing meditative about it, it's called being realistic. If you are a massive fat ass you need to sit there and say, yes KFC would be nice, but I'm not going to eat it because that's stupid. Personal responcibility is something woefully lacking in todays society. Maybe I'm just the strong willed.
Personal responsibility is something woefully lacking in todays society. Maybe I'm just the strong willed.
No, you bring up an excellent point. For months I didn't buy soda for the exact same reason. I would come home from work and have one or two or three. The best way for me to control it was to not buy it. Now I'm at the point where I can keep some soda in the cupboard and maybe drink one a week. I'm not really down with the buddhist, but would agree that there are very simple ways to boost willpower and set yourself up for success.
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