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French Scientists Link Higher BMI with Lower IQ
Xemu writes "French scientists have linked obesity to lower IQ reports the Telegraph. In a new five-year study of more than 2,200 adults, people with a low body mass index (BMI) could recall 30% more words in a vocabulary test than those who were obese. The fatter subjects also showed a higher rate of cognitive decline when they were retested five years later. In the United States, 30% of the population is obese according to OECD. That's the highest rate of obesity anywhere. Do these high obesity rates affect the average IQ of the population?" (Of course, this sidesteps discussion of whether IQ tests measure anything significant at all.)
My father by most peoples definition is brilliant. He is a scientist, he speaks several languages, he is a published author of several highly regarded books both fiction and nonfiction.
Despite all this intelligence he refused to take care of himself, got obese, had several heart attacks and then a series of massive strokes. For decades his doctors told him to lose weight, to stop eating junk food, to drink more water, to exersize and he ignored not only his doctors but his family and friends too.
Now he can barely talk, his mobility is severly limited, he has problems reading and all he does is watch tv.
Was my dad smart or dumb? I used to think he was brilliant but now I realize that he was dumb. Too dumb to prioritize, to take care of the important things in life. The time he took to learn that one more language or to write that one more book should have been spent taking walks or something.
I know lots of "smart" people who are actually dumb like that.
evil is as evil does
Could this study just be another chicken and egg concept and we havn't discussed wich came first?
You mentioned when you are slimmer your less occupied with food and such. Your brain is noticibly performing better as you can notice the differences. It apears though that this study is gearded towards saying slim people are just smarter or have the ability to be smarter easier then fatter people. As if fat content in a prsons body directly reflect thier mental abilities.
Now, What if the slimmer people have traditionaly concentrated on more mental work and less physicle work, therby training thier brain instead of thier muscles. Would this mean that a person who is slimmer is smarter because they are slimmer and less occupied with food or that they have traditionaly used thier brain more and remembering things or solving puzzles becomes more easy to them. Therefore a person with a larger build, spends more time not using thier brain and more on thier muscles, watching TV, or whatever else and thier ability to perform as well as the slim person is diminished?
I remeber in third grade when we started multiplication. I used flash cards and could do almost any problem in my head that involved less then two numbers of two digits or less (20x7). After using calculators for a while, I could do this anymore. But I have been able to return to it becauseof vaious jobs ove rthe decades. (like roofing, framing and general construction working wich involves alot of math)
So, from my personal experience, Could it be just how a slim person spends his time verses how a fatter person might? Obviously anyone who plays sports is going to be better then anyone who doesn't. And people playing for severla years will have somewhat of an advantage over those playing for a few weeks. Is this just the reverse were the game is a mind game instead of football? And someone with several years experience because of lifestyle differences will have an advantage over someone who doesn't exercise thier mind? Could it be that slim or fat is just a reflection of how a person spends thier time and has nothing or little to do with thier fat content outside what a fat person does compared to a skinny person.
I would like to see this studdy done again and the occupations of the people be part of it. I would bet some one of larger BMI who does something like programing or construction were he reads blueprints, sets grades, or transferes scale to live building projects might do a little better then someone who is just fat and works at wopper floppers of america. But if the burger king employee of the month does the same as one of the others of same BMI, I would conceed that fat might have an impact.