Slashdot Mirror
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.)
(Of course, this sidesteps discussion of whether IQ tests measure anything significant at all.)
This also seems to sidestep discussion of whether BMI measures anything significant at all.
=Smidge=
This wasn't a general purpose IQ test. It was a specific test of people's ability to recall words. They're talking about memory in particular, not some fuzzy idea of general intelligence.
Indeed, Timothy does oversimplify the matter.
It is slightly beside the point though because the study noticed a drop in 'cognitive function' in obese people, not IQ. Cognitive function most certainly is significant, albeit specifically to the function measured (which in this case was primarily arthmimetic and vocabulary). It was only the reporting newspaper which introduced IQ, probably for the benefit of dumber/fatter readers.
Not the study, but rather the first linked article.
First, they make the classic error of attributing causation when the study found correlation. If that was in the original study, then I'd question the researcher's methodology, but I suspect the blame lies with whoever wrote the article. Testing people's intelligence and comparing their weight does not show a causitive link between wieght and intellect. It could just as easily show that poor judgement translates into bad eating habits and low IQ.
Second, the criticism they reported came from a politician who tried to use anecdotal evidence to debunk the link. That's right, she said she knew witless skinny people and clever fat people, so the study must therefor be wrong. Someone ought to tell her that the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence".
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Yes I have a weight problem but I don't blame it on IQ, I blame it on american diet and adverting on TV and in magazines.
Which you aren't smart enough to ignore.
KFG
In most industrialized countries and especially in the US, obesity is strongly correlated with low income. Since there is also a strong link between low income and low IQ scores, there may be no causal relationship at all between obesity and a lowered IQ.
How much do you want to bet that the words weren't types of food?
wow, you must be fat!!
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
The French are calling us fat, lazy, and now stupid. Great, well at least we aren't a bunch cheese eating surrender monkeys. Time to eat some more pork rinds and watch American Idol. I hope I don't have to get out of my chair to find my remote. Found it. It was under a fold of fat. I also found my car keys.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Sorry, fatty, but everybody thinks they're smarter than everyone else. Everbody. It's okay though, you can take solace in the fact that everyone has the same lame excuses for their short comings.
There are probably other factors involved here. For example, poverty has also been linked to obesity (in America.) And less intelligence can also be linked to poverty.
So does obesity somehow lead to mental decline? Or are people who are less intelligent more likely to let their physical health deteriorate?
Or maybe less intelligence leads to poverty which leads to obesity. Then again, it could be the other way around...
Correlation does not equal causation. If I had to place a bet, I would say that the link between obesity and intelligence isn't biological like the article is inferring. There may be some kind of link there, but I bet that other factors are more influential.
You're right, IQ is incredibly meaningless. A well-socialized individual with a good work ethic, who is willing to parlay whatever gray matter they have into the task at hand will always prove successful at life. Many of the under-20 uber-nerds who cling to their IQ scores as proof positive of their superiority over others haven't figured this out yet, and to their credit, it's something that's only realized with time: Intelligence is both nature and nurture--the daughter of a doctor and lawyer becomes a bum if she has no direction or commitment. The daughter of a field hand and a grocer becomes the world's most well-respected biologist if she has direction and commitment.
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Funny story: The guy downstairs had his "MENSA Bulletin" delivered to my mailbox by mistake (probably due to the innerwebs and lack of blue mailboxes!), so of course I kept it. I've been leaving it prominently near the john for some high brow bathroom reading. And man oh man, have I been disappointed. The articles are poorly conceived and written, the letters from readers absolutely dumb. The pictures of "smart people" show them not even badly dressed, but incapably dressed--as in , for example, they clearly missed belt loops when they were putting on their belts (Is looking accidentally slovenly for nationally distributed photographs the mark of a genuinely intelligent person who likes themselves? I submit that it is not.)
So my friends have been coming over, and when they inevitably have to use the restroom, they see the magazine and go "You're in MENSA?" all accusingly. And of course I pretend to be, and mutter something about how "we're trying to reform the government under our own intelligent rule" (did you see that episode of The Simpsons too?)
And as I can feel their opinion of me lessening, lessening...I finally let on that, no, of course I'm not a part of fucking MENSA. And every time, they respond with something like "Oh I was gonna say, because those people are idiots!" And then we page through the magazine together, mocking it the entire time. And we live happily ever after. The end.
For starters, let me disabuse you of the notion that I spend my evenings looking through the dirt-stained glass of an abandoned feed factory, breath frosting up the glass, spying on the secret meetings of the local MENSA chapter and hoping against hope that this week--oh god let it be this week--will be my chance to finally get admitted.
I actually have received invitations to attend MENSA meetings in the past, but have always declined. (Is that how recruitment is done? God only knows.) I politely say that I have a "differing philosophy". Namely, I believe that intelligence and success should be measured in terms of real, humanistic achievement in the real world, and not by corny metrics that determine whether or not a person should be admitted to a shamelessly self-promotional smarty-pants club. But of course I don't say all that. Politely declining the invitation is really enough.
I know that must just fry you--that there are people out there in the world who are at least reasonably smart and reasonably socialized, and who look at their introverted and prideful intelligent brothers with pity. It may seem at odds with what I read as teenage angst, but I assure you we exist.
And speaking of teenage angst, you might want to stop using the lexicon of a teenager. "Jocks"..."frat guys"...it's the language of someone who still thinks of people in terms of symbolic high school lunch tables (i.e. somebody not all that smart after all). If you're just some silly immature kid (I understand that about half of Slashdot readers fit that description)--then you get a free pass, because that's all you've seen so far in terms of how people organize themselves. But if not, then, well, there's that whole pity thing again. To phrase this in terms you've voluntarily adopted, I am no jock, or frat-guy, or anything else. I sit at everyone's lunch table, and I don't use their interests as some kind of bogus reason to judge and dismiss them.
So I guess to be more crass about things, that, my boy, is why I haven't joined your fruity little club.
Good luck--may your false pride and wanton disdain for others take you to great new heights.
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.