Slashdot Mirror
Specific Gut Bacteria May Account For Much Obesity
resistant writes "A limited study from China offers the tantalizing possibility that targeting specific gut bacteria in humans could significantly reduce the scope of an epidemic of obesity in Western countries: 'The endotoxin-producing Enterobacter decreased in relative abundance from 35% of the volunteer's gut bacteria to non-detectable, during which time the volunteer lost 51.4kg of 174.8kg initial weight and recovered from hyperglycemia and hypertension after 23 weeks on a diet of whole grains, traditional Chinese medicinal foods and prebiotics.' As usual, sensationalist reports have been exaggerating the import of this very early investigation, and one wonders about that 'diet of whole grains.' Still, there could be meat in the idea of addressing pathogenic bacteria for the control of excessive weight gain. After all, it wasn't too long ago that a brave scientist insisted in the face of widespread ridicule that peptic ulcers in humans usually are caused by bacterial infections, not by acidic foods."
It will be fascinating to see what happens when other teams try to replicate these results with larger, more statistically significant groups than just one individual. ^^;
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
...one wonders about that 'diet of whole grains.' Still, there could be meat in the idea...
My own studies suggest that the Crunchwrap Supreme is responsible for obesity.
Why is everyone here in the US hooked on the "false dillema" falicy?
Why can't there be multiple issues? We do have the people that overeat, but there's more that a few people that have had problems with obesity and no one quite understands what the real cause is. There can always be multiple causes and multiple solutions (or not one single solution).
Scientists will soon discover that this gut bacteria is hugely successful at metabolizing fructose...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
Why are people hooked on the "false dillema" falicy?
FTFY. Please, let's try and have at least one science article free of politics and anti-$country rhetoric.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
From the point of view of gut bacteria, we are just hosts serving their purposes as transportation and food suppliers. If they can get more food by releasing the right kind of chemical signals into our system, they will. This is a real life example of the way the fictional Goa'uld parasites treated their human hosts. But bacteria are not aliens, they are actually derived from the same ancient ancestors as us.
I don't onow about this study in particular, but they did find certain strains, not normally found in rats, which stimulated a nerve which lead to stress, which lead to overeating and abdominal fat.
Just getting rid of that particular bacteria (there are hundreds, not just one "bacteria") fixed it.
Gut fuana is the latest study area. There are many quasi-stable configurations, some better than others. Each island of stability could be seen in terms of chaos theory and strange attractors, or various local minima in the multidimensiional gradient descent space of the environment, if you will.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I've found that the "eating less" diet really had significant efficacy in weight reduction.
Why is everyone here in the US hooked on the "false dillema" falicy?
Why can't there be multiple issues? We do have the people that overeat, but there's more that a few people that have had problems with obesity and no one quite understands what the real cause is. There can always be multiple causes and multiple solutions (or not one single solution).
It's more than just that. Controlled studies where volunteers spent a couple weeks locked in a research facility eating only the precisely measured meals given to them by researchers showed variations in weight gain/loss, even after accounting for muscle mass, overall health, and amount of exercise the volunteers engaged in. Some participants lost weight, some stayed relatively the same, and some gained weight.
A persistently (and severely) restricted diet will eventually overcome all other factors and force you to lose weight, but it is obvious that some people absorb way more calories from the same meal than others. If the gut bacteria are breaking down certain complex carbohydrates, starches, etc that would otherwise go undigested, they could easily account for the difference.
In fact, in a famine or food-poor situation, such bacteria would be evolutionarily selected for, as they would give the carriers a leg-up, allowing them to stay healthy and non-malnurished while their neighbors starved.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
At the other end of the spectrum, some people with tapeworms can eat enormous amounts of food without gaining weight at all. Which just goes to show, you can't assume all humans to be equal.
Much like with the rich and the poor, it seems the thin like to pretend that it's all down to their virtue and resolve, and the fat like to pretend that it isn't.
I know that I'm thinner and more fit than I deserve based on my lifestyle, which makes it hard for me to judge others who may do more work for less results.
Search the article for "calories" and not a single mention. If you eat more than about 2000 calories, you're going to gain weight,less- you lose weight. I don't see any way the subjects in the experiment lost weight without lowering their normal calorie intake.
A bacterium which breaks down undigestible nutrients into digestible nutrients, and instead of thinking about how we can use this to improve the health of the 1 billion malnourished individuals in the world, we think about how to eliminate it just to help out the Common American Fatty?
Gut bacteria and other factors can change things up to a small degree, but you'll never get around the basic physics of your metabolism. Expend less energy than you consume, and you will gain weight. Expend more than you consume, and you *will* lose weight. You cannot gain weight if you don't consume enough food to keep your body running anymore than you can continue driving a car on an empty tank.
That said, there are some drugs that prevent certain types of "nutrients" from being digested (e.g. Lipitor makes it more difficult for your body to digest fats) which is an effect that may be replicated by some natural things (e.g. gut bacteria).
But really, it's no shock that people are fatter today. We have a diet that is primarily based on very calorie dense, processed simple carbohydrates. Pretty much *everything* you buy has added simple carbs (SUGAR) which is just not how things used to be. This is a double edged sword because everything you eat has more calories, and is less filling (because simple carbs are 2-3x more calorie dense than proteins and fats.
Let's introduce something into your gut that throws off the horomones which control your hunger response. See how well you cope when you go around all day feeling unsatiated no matter what you eat.
Not saying bacteria is all of it, but it's damn well within the realm of possibility. Maybe science will find a fix for this "weak will power" that many people get chided over, and at least we may have one reasonable solution to the obesity problem without having to hear so much bitching and criticism over it.
The human body contains trillions of microorganisms — outnumbering human cells by 10 to 1. Because of their small size, however, microorganisms make up only about 1 to 3 percent of the body's mass (in a 200-pound adult, that’s 2 to 6 pounds of bacteria), but play a vital role in human health.
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jun2012/nhgri-13.htm
We are quite litterly crawling with bacteria and other shit. Their very critical to our health.
Now what is scary is we have GMO companies that want to produce cows that produce milk with GMO bacteria for us to be their perfect little labratories...
Were you actually puffing out your chest and thumping it while writing that bit of holier than thou or did it just read that way?
Many things which travel through the gut don't cause a problem because the Cilia protect the digestive tract wall. When Cilia get damaged as with Crohn's Disease, then infection or inflamation can occur.
If the Enterobacter growth is enhanced by some items in the diet and suppressed by others that would not be surprising. If the Enterobacter or a product from that bacteria causes inflamation that causes the Pancreas to screw up the insulin production and regulation, that too would not be surprising.
It is only recently that investigation has begun to accelerate on what the effects of different bacteria in the gut are doing and why. Great article with potential for good results.
Mod parent up. You're making a lot of sense here. :3
Why is everyone here in the US hooked on the "false dillema" falicy?
I think you've got it all wrong. Having more guns in the hands of "good guys" would really be all we need to make the world safer.
Oh, wait... what were we talking about again?
Truth. There are dozens of potential pathways. My sister fell incredibly ill with a body-wide infection that near killed her in 2002. Like everyone else in my family she'd *always* been one of those people who could eat anything she liked and gain no weight. She's 5'10", was slim to the western celebrity ideal, and had done a little modeling. Her gut shut down and only after months of care could she come home - she left the hospital after four months with damaged kidneys and weighing more than when she went in, and over the next three years she continued to gain. Now she struggles to keep under 280lbs and she eats less than a quarter her previous diet. The rest of us eat freely and we're rake-thin - and by freely I mean we're all around the 5k calories a day mark while she's struggling to stay under 1500.
What happened? Logically I can only guess she began using more of the food she ate towards stored energy, or lost the ability to expend energy as much, or a mix of both. Maybe my brother and other sisters waste a lot of our energy intake, maybe we expend a lot by the nature of our metabolisms. Maybe my sister's gut bacteria died and whatever organism pushed changes in dietary absorbtion up had a chance to flourish at the expense of a 'healthier' flora. Maybe damaged organs change the ratio she stores vs expends.
What I'm getting at is "I thought it was over consumption of calories" like the gp suggested is a far too simplistic a suggestion - calories in vs calories out is obviously a valid equation at the root level, but calories put in the mouth do not equate to calories usable by the body and *that* does not equate to calories actually used by the body. I overconsume and I'm thin and metabolically healthy by all standards I've ever needed to be tested for. It's about as useful a suggestion for reasons of obesity as "I thought life was consumption of oxygen". Yeah, there's a link, but.... no.
Funny seeing the subject of gut bacteria in a /. forum.
Just last week I was reading an article on the Mercola.com site, link here:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/03/18/mcbride-and-barringer-interview.aspx
Gut bacteria has much more to do with overall health in general that most people think.
Weight loss being linked to having all the right bacteria in the gut is also a bonus
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
There are indeed multiple causes.
1) Eating to much
2) Not moving around enough
I am overweight, yet I do not blame anybody but me. I do not exercise enough and I eat to much and unhealthy. When I bought my car, it started. Instead of walking to the bus/train each day for about 20-30 minutes and then from there to work. Instead of walking to the stores two or three times a week, which took another hour per time, I walk 20 meters to my car, sit in it and then walk 20 meters to my office.
Untill just a few years ago, the majority of people did not have a car. That means that they had to use other means to get around. Each one of them means more walking.
We are lazy. Even moving our arm up and down to brush our teeth is too much, so we use electric devices for that. If you need to go one or two floors up or down, do you walk or take the elevator?
So please stop finding excuses in some rare disease that somebody might have. Move around more and eat less and you will be thinner and healthier. Again: I am overweight and I am not going to look for excuses. If I want to get healthier, I must eat better and exercise more.
And those few you are talking about? I am sure that if they would have exercised more and eaten healthier, they would have no issues with whatever is causing their obesity.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
This is bull shit. You cannot escape the laws of thermodynamics.
If you eat more calories than you burn, you get fat.
If you burn more calories than you eat, you get skinny.
It isn't that simple. I eat whatever I want and don't workout much and I haven't been able to gain weight ever in my life, and I have tried. I lived off of fast food lunches for several years when I was single but for some reason my body doesn't respond to the calories. I don't have high cholesterol or high BP and the doc says I am healthy - just skinny. I have met several people like me, and others that I know that (if they ate what I ate) would balloon up rather quickly.
Sure, there can be dozens of factors.
Yet, 99.999% of the time obese people are eating processed sugar and fat by the pound.
Whatever fad diet of the month, whatever "ground breaking" research, they grab onto it all...but they never, ever drop the candy bars, cookies, cheese, cake, bacon, etc. It's an addiction, no less disgusting and debilitating then crystal meth.
Yet, what do their friends and families do? They send them endless gifts of candy, cookies, cheese/salami baskets. Are you people that fucking insane and heartless?! Would you send gifts of whiskey to an alcoholic friend?! What is wrong with you people!
---
It's a simple and tragic combination of sugar/fat addicts who have a hard time quitting, and a society that thinks it's OK to constantly pressure them to take another hit.
The only valid way to view someone eating a candy is to imagine someone shooting heroine into their veins.
My
They aren't all slender because they don't eat - they eat like horses. But its a lot less red meat (as in a LOT less), almost no dairy, and tons of rice and veggies.
Do YOU feel hungry 20 minutes after a fucking huge meal?
Do YOU have any injuries that make excercise difficult?
Do YOU have any one of the conditions you so readily dismiss.
Laws of thermodynamics MY ARSE. Not everyone's body has the exact same efficiency. Your body is not a closed system, unless you're so ANAL you've never TAKEN a shit in your life.
You go fucking run 30 miles a day you fucktard, and see how long your body lasts. Care to do that at age 80 you miserable excuse for a human being. Fat hating disguised as science is revolting. GO AND FUCK YOURSELF.
That's very oversimplified to the point of being almost wrong. The problem is that your metabolism varies depending on how much energy is available. If you cut your calorie intake to try to lose weight, your cells slow down their metabolic rate to compensate, and you're still expending no more energy than you consume. When the system is calibrated correctly, people keep a fairly constant weight no matter how much or how little they eat. When the system is calibrated wrong, people can't lose weight no matter how little they eat. There are things you can do to improve your odds, such as starving yourself for one day every few days so that your body does not adjust to the reduced calorie consumption, but that only goes so far.
And although you are correct that consuming sugars and starches instead of fats and proteins makes this problem worse, high protein diets are hard on your kidneys, heart, etc. So that's not a fix, either. The right fix is to figure out why the whole system is out of balance and fix it.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Overeating junk and sedentary lifestyle account for the obesity epidemic. Beyond these two facts, there's nothing important, or even interesting, to be learned about the obesity epidemic.
Where do "the laws of thermodynamics" state that efficiency doesn't matter?
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I literally ate 10,000 calories a day and didn't gain an ounce. I drank a full 8 pack of 16 ounce pepsi bottles every day, ate a large bag of potato chips and a pound of cheese every day. This is on top of a large breakfast, lunch, afterschool dagwood sandwiches, huge supper with seconds at every meal. After dinner I would eat chips, more cheese, other snacks and popcorn loaded with butter. For breakfast I would eat a stack of 10 pancakes, a couple of boiled eggs, a 6 egg omlet, toast, sausage, bacon, a huge glass of milk, and with everything slathered with butter and bacon grease. Lunch was a box of chocolate donuts and a huge cocolate milk shake, dinner was steak, mashed potatoes, green beans. If I ate at a fast food restraunt it was 10 cheese burgers and a couple of large fries.
I was 5 foot 8 inches tall and I maintained less than 110 pound weight for most of high school.
And it wasn't because of my activity level either. I was a complete, couch potato when I was a teen ager. I just sat around reading, or playing video games on my computers.
Once I hit 30 years old I started gaining weight. No matter how little I ate I kept gaining weight. No matter how much I increased my activity level I kept gaining weight. Now I keep my food intake down to less than 1200 calories a day and try to walk everyday.
Glad to know that there might be a treatment to help me out soon.
First giving the patient a dose of antibotics and then once most of the bacteria are dead then give them a fecal transplant that contain a better mixture of gut flora?
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
There is a growing movement blaming autoimmune arthritis diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, on gut flora. http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2012-rst/6933.html
You know, that doesn't work for everyone. It sounds great when it works for YOU, but it's entirely possible to eat reasonably, exercise a lot, and *still* not lose weight. I exercise five days a week, two hours a day, and I'm not talking light exercise. I don't eat sweets, I don't drink, I control my carbs, I make sure I don't drown in meat proteins... I *love* veggies and eat them every day, both salads and side dishes, and I *still* have trouble controlling my weight. Yeah, I'm strong and have stamina and flexibility -- all important targets for my undertakings -- but the fat wants to hang around regardless. I have *never* been "cut." Kinda sleek looking like a seal back in my teenage days, pretty big through the chest and shoulders, but even then I carried extra weight (i'm talking fat) on my thighs and ass. And I was active as hell. Caving, swimming, martial arts, biking, dragging musical equipment from gig to gig, rope climbing, pushing lawn mowers... I hardly ever sat still.
Today I have students that are so cut, so defined, so obviously on the extreme low end of the body fat range it would make you cry... and if that didn't do it, watching them wolf down $15 worth of McDonald's poison surely would. I can't eat that crap at *all* or my weight takes right off. Not that I really want to, but still, the message is clear: What makes me fat doesn't make you fat, and so forth.
Everyone's experience is not the same. Metabolism, infection, allergies, immune system fuckarows and Darwin knows what else...
"Exercise and eat healthy food" is not a universal prescription for "control body fat." It's just a good start for baseline health.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if someone identifies one (or more) independent factors that drive fat retention. I've suspected it for years.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The problem here is that nobody not on a strictly regimented diet or suffering from an eating disorder only eats as much calories than they need.
Human biology heavily pushes people towards moderate over-consumption. In fact, going under the amount of calories you require will cause significant fatigue and pain.
Calories in, calories out. For a slim person, however, the calories are coming out in their waste, because their body does not digest it the same way it does in fat people. That is, in fact, what the summary said.
Outrageous claims require some solid evidence.
Please provide properly peer-reviewed studies supporting your viewpoint.
I forget the name of the recent female surgeon general who said the only diet that works is "Eat less, move more." No starvation diets, sensible portions eaten regularly, else your body goes into 'starvation mode' and saves/retains every calorie. Supposedly,it's an evolutionary trait from when a human might go weeks without food.
You're not fat because of ANYTHING except long term consumption of more calories than you burn
If you consume a million twinkies encased in a metal cylinder, you won't gain an ounce. You have to absorb the nutrients. The bacteria are most certainly a factor in how the nutrients get processed and eventually absorbed. With the right engineering, the metabolome could be designed such that you could eat forever without becoming obese. There's more than one way (or even two ways) to solve any problem.
It may be a colossal waste of human and natural resources to do that engineering, but that doesn't justify your point at all.
Try to be factually correct.
Instead of asking OP for an explanation you should be explaining how your "no exceptions" interpretation accounts for the fact that ruminants can digest (ie extract calories from) cellulose yet humans and most other animals cannot cannot survive on such a diet and will starve.
So here's a correlation confound. Your gut bacteria is a big function of the kind of diet you have. This is advertised heavliy by the yogurt people: live-culture yogurts to help get you "regular", yucko. So people who eat more yogurt will have more acidophilus and lactobacilli. Those who eat meat (and particularly poorly cooked meat) will tend to have bacteria associated with those meats. Beef-eaters may have more e. coli (Jack-in-the-Box infected burgers, anyone), chicken-eaters may have more salmonella than others, and pork could mean many bacteria and even trichinosis (worms) or brain-monsters.
.
So since your meat-eating habits may influence your bacteria, cutting down on meat will simultaneously improve your dietary intake and change your gut bacteria. This creates the confound. Is it the bacteria that created the bad health, or was the bacteria another symptom of the bad health that came along with the unhealthy diet?
Try and follow this:
1. Humans shit.
2. Human shit has calories in variable amounts.
3. Humans excrete in other ways as well (breathing, sweating, pissing, hair removals, etc.)
So the laws of physics prohibit differences in efficiency?
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I'm infected!
He, along with many others in here, are saying that more end up being taken out than going in. In simpler terms, you'd shit out some undigestable matter instead of it being absorbed and kept in your body, since the bacteria might be what's making it digestable.
This study is not an isolated case regarding the issue of bacterium-mediated weight gain.
There have been several studies which clearly indicate that there appears to be a case for "(at least some) people have excess weight due to 'which bacteria inhabit their gut' " or something approximating that.
Yes folks, I said DUE TO, ie caused by the bacteria not the other way around (in at least one case, administering a certain bacteria caused not just scientifically significant but visibly large weight gain on the exact same diet, at least in rats).
As yet there's no conclusive proof (ie several repeated tests independently verified) with hard science numbers (not to mention something of an explanation why/how this works) and, and no magic cure for fatness, but science is nowhere near laughing this off as 'mere crackpottery'.
There's VERY OBVIOUSLY something going on here with certain bacteria and (at least) some overweight people, and scientists (all over the world, not "just someone I've never heard of in China") are turning up results from a variety of research projects (all with slightly different angles) all pointing in the direction of "this is starting to smell just like That Stomach Ulcer Thing".
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
What you are missing is that a meal that is 500 calories for person A who does not have these bacteria may be 750 calories for person B who does have these bacteria.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
A page about nutrition and what science has to say about it. All videos have links to the original research so that you can check that the good Dr isn't making shit up.
There are a few videos about endotoxins and their effect. Feel free to have a look.
http://nutritionfacts.org/index.php?s=endotoxins
The guys solution is probably not what most people have in mind.
So far I haven't seen anyone well researched refute the guy.
This was the video lecture that got me interested in what he had to say: http://nutritionfacts.org/video/uprooting-the-leading-causes-of-death/
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
You got any evidence to back that up?
The laws of thermodynamics back up the GP's statement.
This doesn't explain how some people are able to eat a lot of calories without gaining weight.
He didn't claim that everyone's metabolism was the same, some people have tapeworms, some don't chew their food properly, none of that alters the basic physics.
I'm old enough to remember the last of the Chinese famines. A famine is a catastrophe that all to often befalls large populations, and all too often is a direct result of government policy. Why the hell are westerners all worked up about an "obesity epidemic"? The fact that it is even possible is a good thing, the fact that we are free to stuff our face until we explode is also a good thing. Food abuse, like drug abuse, is a personal "problem" it's not a social engineering problem, I don't need (or want) a war on either kind of coke.
Don't get me wrong, people selling food have some responsibility for their product, I'm all for educational mandates that say you must list the nutritional content,etc. I'm also strongly in favor of health regulations and random kitchen inspections by the health authorities. For example, I know smokes are bad for me, it tells me on the pack but I still buy them. The educational aspect of that is a great example of responsible fact based regulation that still acknowledges the consumer as an adult.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Well some of us don't mind being hungry and further more don't consider hunger to be an unavoidable command to eat. Personally I prefer to run on empty, I think more clearly and feel less tired.
Has anyone looked at GMO consumption and obesity? Just compare citizens of USA and people in UE (where GMO is rather forbidden).
What outrageous claim?
How to not be a fat ass: Eat less, move more.
This is hardly a fringe position. I only add the suggestion to it that rather then start with crazy fad diets (that have zero "peer-reviewed studies"), that people start simply by not eating trash like pure sugar and pounds of cheese. If you need a "peer-reviewed study" to convince you that not eating complete shit is a good thing, you're already beyond hope.
And I add the advice to those who have fat friends and family, to stop giving them "gifts" of complete shit such as candy and pounds of cheese.
None of this is the slightest bit outrageous. But ya know what is outrageous? You and your ilk that demand "peer-reviewed studies" before you'll even consider the idea that chowing down on donuts and brie might not do wonderful things to your waist line.
My
...and more fruits and beans, and a limited amount of nuts, seeds, and whole grains. Eat a lot less of everything else. See Dr. Joel Fuhrman's book "Eat to Live" for the details. Or for a slightly different approach, see the book "What Color is Your Diet" by David Heber, MD, PhD, founding director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition, and dietitian Susan Bowerman, MS, RD. Or the book "The Pleasure Trap" by Doug Lisle and ALan Goldhamer. A great graph here:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
This is not to disagree that people vary, including in bacteria and their gut. But the basics are that leafy green vegetable have the least calories per amount of volume in the stomach, followed by fruits and beans. Fill up on those, and there is just not room for high calorie foods.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
You are correct, however, as a person who has lost 30kg and kept it off through diet and exercise, I know that I have to eat less and do more than many people I know. I would be very happy to be able to change my gut bacteria and be more relaxed than I have to be now. I train 12-14 (hard) hours a week and am constantly aware of my kilojoule intake. It would be nice to not have to fight every day to maintain a healthy weight. My brothers did not put on weight easily on the same intake and I was more active than they were as kids, but I am more prone to weight gain than they are. Targeted antibiotics followed by a re-seeding with less efficient bacteria resulting in less energy being released from food would be great. I get pissed off sometimes when I see the amount of crap others can eat and then sit on their arses all day and not gain weight. I like the other results of my lifestyle, I'm fit and strong and complete Tough Mudders, but it would be nice to be able to relax sometimes.
Lipitor does not make it difficult to digest fats... It reduces you body's ability to make cholesterol, but has no effect on fat digestion.
See my comment here about feeling full by eating a lot more leafy greens: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3335159&cid=42372385
Dr. Joel Fuhrman recommends making salad dressings from ground up nuts or adding things like avocados to get healthy fats into there. I agree good fats help in feelign full too. Joel Fuhrman talsk about the body's "appestat" that controls when we stop eating and how the main determinats are whether the stomach is full (fiber) and whether their are enough nutrients (supplied mostly by veggies).
That said, I know what you mean about comfort food. It is a hard habit to break if at allt -- and it just goes to show that health is a social thing. Good luck.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If fat people absorb more they should only experience fatigue and pain at lower consumption levels. Assuming their moms aren't making them clean their plates. But instead of seeing them eat 2 meals per day they are more likely to be eating 6.
He's making a lot of sense, in the same way that people who claimed the earth was flat made a lot of sense. It seemed right.
But science has a more exacting methodology than simply believing what seems to make sense. When a hypothesis is found to be inconsistent with observed facts then the underlying theory has to be rejected, and that's the case here.
Of two people who eat exactly the same thing, one may be skinny and the other obese. That blows the parent's theory right out of the water.
This is like saying that my Ferrari beat your Yugo because I pumped more gas into it.
Never mind hunger. What if you feel like you're going to pass out after you run a mile? What if you feel like you're going to fall asleep after two hours at the desk? You find that calories allow you to run 2 miles, or get through 8 hours of work. Alas, there is a side effect. What do you tell the overweight office worker who is in this situation? Quit office work and climb transmission towers?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Your claim that "99.999%" of fat people are eating processed sugar and fat by the pound.
This is an outrageous claim.
And your claim that weight gain is caused exclusively by diet is not proven either, I'm afraid.
Give us proof rather than petulant attacks on other people.
You're naive. What you are saying is equivalent to saying that the toilet cistern overflows because there is too much water going into it. Someone who actually understands the problem (a plumber) would point out it's because the ballcock is faulty.
The issue of obesity is not one of physics, nor of willpower. It's of understanding why some people's sense of saity works well, and other people's doesn't. Lots of people have theories, every diet fad puts forward a new one. But as yet no one knows for sure. It remains an area of science where there are huge unknowns.
Meanwhile, in related news, North Korea is conducting large scale human tests by feeding segments of their their population nothing but skinny mice.
Have gnu, will travel.
Or maybe because we eat certain things these days our digestive system adapt to how to process the food we give it. Could that maybe be the reason ?
And I wouldn't be surprised if it is really hard for our digestive system to switch back to the previous mode.
New things are always on the horizon
You didn't fix "falicy"?
You must also be from the U.S. ;)
Well, we know why it's broken. Hoarding energy confers a significant survival benefit during times of famine.
What's under investigation now is how it's broken.
Here's a really good layman's article at the Economist mag on this topic.. I read it back in August and haven't stopped thinking about it every time I see someone who is obese but still is chowing down in defiance of his own situation.
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
environmental chemicals, food additives, air pollution, genetics.. the question to ask is what and why it's an epidemic. What is an epidemic? Is is obesity, lack of energy, lowered IQ, metabolic disorders? It's easy to say just exercise and control the portions but that is downstream and doesn't eliminate what is causing the situation to spiral out of control in the first place. Not just at the moment but a whole life time of wiping your ass with bleached toilet paper (for example) :)
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
Let's not let PC stupidity get in the way of truth,
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Fat people - and I do recognize that this is an unproven hypothesis, but then again so is the conventional wisdom that low-fat diets are the way to lose weight - eat more often than skinny people because they're hungrier. They eat because they're gaining fat. They do not become fat because they eat too much; they eat too much because they are becoming fat and growing horizontally rather than vertically. Kids don't grow because they eat a lot - they eat a lot because they're growing. Eliminate the carbs, eliminate the insulin release, and the vicious cycle that causes the body to store energy as fat instead of using it for energy goes away. All of a sudden, your body is using all the energy you eat instead of trying to store it, you're more full on less food, and the weight falls off: 75 pounds in 9 months, in my case, with no exercise. Miraculous. Heavenly. I'm 38 years old and I weigh less than I did when I was 18. Extra bonus: because restaurants load up on carbs on everything (they're cheap and they taste good), you end up eating a lot more meals at home - cheaper, usually better, and definitely you know exactly what went into it.
More important than thermodynamics is what determines what type of energy form food is transformed into. Let's say a brain needs 5g of glucose for a given period of time, let's further make the simplified assumption that feeding the brain is the main determinant of food consumption. If one person's body stores 90% of sugars into fat and only provides 10% of intake for glucose what do you think their body type will be like compared to somebody whose body converts only 20% to fat? Are they likely to be bingers or grazers?
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Stop eating carbs. Cut them out completely. You won't get hungry. You'll probably lose more weight. I've lost 35kg in nine months without any exercise at all.
It is everybody's fault, but mine.
How about this. We'll have researchers lock both of us in chambers for a few months.
In your chamber you'll be given 2000 calories per day of sawdust.
In my chamber I'll be given 2000 calories per day of restaurant food.
Care to predict the outcome? After all, a calorie is a calorie, right?
Now, repeat the experiment but with termites, and note the different outcome.
Uh, if you actually extracted all the mass-energy of a french fry with 100% efficiency you could wipe out a city with the fire coming out of your mouth...
Since your digestive system is somewhat less efficient than an active galactic nucleus, you'll have to settle for a few paltry calories, and the number will vary by individual.
Yet, 99.999% of the time obese people are eating processed sugar and fat by the pound.
99.999% of the time people with a healthy weight are eating processed sugar and fat by the pound as well. Could it be possible that there are other factors involved beyond diet, or for that matter factors that influence diet?
Your body is a unique machine. How it reacts to what it eats depends on how it is built. What it chooses to eat depends on how it is built. How it reacts to being called a "fat ass" depends on how it is built.
Telling an obese person to lose weight is kind of like telling the average person to do better in math - they're just not built for it.
Exercise and don't eat too much food. It comes down to input vs. output. If you double your food intake, you will almost certainly gain weight. People don't like to hear that they should eat less, however.
Agreed, I eat a low card-high protein diet now, but it'd be nice to change gut flora and enjoy desert without thinking about it wouldn't it?
Diseases and ailments is pathetic. I have had digestive system problems since I was 25 and am now over 50.
The last digestive system guy I visited who was highly educated from a good medical school (UofM) said and I quote..
"You just have a rotten gut". Yes I blinked. I wanted to ask how much he paid for his medical education. But I just
walked out shaking my head.
It took the guy that proposed that ulcers were caused by bacterial infections 5 plus years to put his idea and his
research data into the medical communities awareness. If the medical community is that resistant to new ideas what other things
have been missed due to not thinking outside the box or being forced by ridicule to withdraw a sound idea from publication.
If we stop and think about it, our present 'course' regarding human nutrition is incredibly stupid. On one side, here we believe evolution and natural selection, and the influence of genetic diversity and specificity of human health... and yet we just throw this all out the window when it comes to nutrition (and other aspects of human health). The human physiology evolved, and the GI tract developed, to east certain foods (handle certain groups of fats, proteins, etc.) and use bacteria to help with digestion and aspects of protection from 'bad' bacteria. And now we are taking antibiotics orally, sterilizing so much of our food. When are modifying foods into 'food-like' chemicals and swallowing them regularly. I mean, I'm a PhD chemical engineer... if I just mixed up some vegetable oils, ran some reactions on those oils, poured them into a cup and said, "here, drink this..." Would you? Hell fucking no! I wouldn't drink it myself! Well, we are generally allowing large food conglomerates to do exactly this... we have no idea on the long term human health effects of consumption of modified oils and so many other processed and synthesized foods. Every single food we eat has a pharmacological effect on our body and triggers hormone responses such as insulin release, etc. (don't believe me, just ask someone with a severe food allergy); we need our healthy GI track bacteria. What science has been done generally supports that GI track bacterial flora population 'health' is very ,very important for overall health. "Good bacteria' break down simple sugars (so we absorb them all), fight 'bad' bacteria that can release toxins/enzymes into our GI track, blah blah blah... lot of reasons.
It is good that this gaining momentum because a lot of doctors don't know shit about this unless their medical school made them learn it and a lot of us regular people just don't have the inclination, time, or necessary background education to really study in this area. For now... I recommend everyone try to do some reading in the area of basic human biochemistry and the biochemistry/microbiology of the GI track and food digestion. Frankly I need to do more myself. I did a lot of reading a couple years ago when I got really sick, and had all kinds GI tract and allergic issues for a while... learned some of what I noted above and lot more. I'm pretty much all better now... but, honestly, my primary doctor didn't have clue what was wrong... figured out a lot of it on my own, did see a specialist who was 'mildly' helpful, and sort fixed myself.
oh yeah... Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays / Happy New Year everyone!
Nothing wrong with your math.
Your knowledge of human physiology, on the other hand....
Sure, for some people it's that simple. For others its like telling an alcoholic to just stop drinking, or a smoker to just stop smoking, or a meth addict to just stop taking the stuff.
Yeah, some people, maybe most, can do that. Some people can even shoot heroin without getting addicted to it. Probably most people could lose weight if they were just willing to focus on it. (I'm down 55-60 lb from my peak, from technically obese to normal. Halfway into that a friend asked me how. I told her "just stay hungry".) Some can't, not without causing severe damage in other ways.
And a few years ago, doctors were saying you don't have ulcers because of bacteria in your gut, you have them from eating acidic/spicy food.
-- Alastair
Tend to blame the victims. Most modern processed foods are full of inflammatory poisons (HFCS, artificial sweeteners, hydrogenated oils)
Paleo and Atkins work for some, not for others. Blaming people for being fat is like blaming people for being poor and uneducated.
Additionally, fast foods today aren't as healthy as they were years before (HFCS, hydrogenated oils, soy, fillers, artificial colorings, and other carcinogenic preserves using benzenes,) no longer using animal fats, and quality foods aren't subsidized while healthcare is. Juice feasting and lots of water works for many , Paleo and Atkins works for some, but have a crouton and you blow up like a blimp from the "carb starving".
The societal equation is wrong. Food is medicine, when used properly.
People who are struggling with this should at least consider the documentaries : "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" and "Forks over Knives" and watch the tons of videos on YouTube that show people transforming their lives and regaining control.
Oh yes, of course. If they come up with gut flora that neutralize the negative effects of carbohydrates, I'll be first in line. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but I love peanut butter and jelly sandwicheas.
Funny, common sense doesn't always mean right sense. This is one of those cases. If your someone whose body happens to crave right around the right amount of food then you are lucky. If not then it'd be nice to find out why.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
And be like me, needing a knee replacement at 45, still be over weight and when cutting calories and "dieting" feeling nothing but sleepy, grump and deprived. Sorry getting up of your lazy azz and stopping eating is not a solution.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
You got any evidence to back that up?
The laws of thermodynamics back up the GP's statement.
You're epically wrong... Not all calories are equal: some are easier to metabolize than others, requiring less calories to process. And some can only be metabolized by your liver, e.g. fructose:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
Why the hell are westerners all worked up about an "obesity epidemic"? The fact that it is even possible is a good thing, the fact that we are free to stuff our face until we explode is also a good thing. Food abuse, like drug abuse, is a personal "problem" it's not a social engineering problem.
It's less a personal problem than it is a food industry problem. Sure, drinking coke or fruit juice is personal choice, as is eating processed food, but you just try it: try to intake no fructose at all for a week. Unless you eat each meal at home, and do nearly everything yourself from the raw ingredients, it borders on the impossible.
Moreover, it's a society problem, in the sense that obesity is tied to fatty liver, diabetese, high blood pressure, etc., all of which contribute to healthcare spending.
No, mod it down.
He's making no sense. Calories are not processed the same way within the body. Metabolizing some require more calories than others. And metabolizing at least one, fructose, can only be done in the liver.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BRFSS_obesity_1985-2006.gif
Look at how it takes hold in Mississippi, then spreads out from there to "infect" other states.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
The issue of obesity is not one of physics, nor of willpower. It's of understanding why some people's sense of saity works well, and other people's doesn't. Lots of people have theories, every diet fad puts forward a new one. But as yet no one knows for sure. It remains an area of science where there are huge unknowns.
Indeed. There's pretty solid and damning evidence against fructose, though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
Godziraaaaa!
Oh wait. It was a Chinese study, not a Japanese study. You confused me.
You are lying to yourself or badly mismeasuring your food intake.
I'm with Neil! http://youtu.be/qDLrwwOxnaA
Say you and an person who "eats like a pig" both consume the same amount of calories and expend the same amount of work per day for a month, would you be willing to accept the change in weight results as definitive proof as to whether it is the person who is at blame or some other factors?C
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Everyone knows infants were giving a choice of inherited genetics and environment before birth.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Its not that simple. Cravings are not just "your fault". Its a complex combination of biological processes and hormone signaling caused by doing things like eating too much sugar in your diet. I'm not saying people aren't at fault. I'm saying that they are influenced by sugar (specifically fructose) and its been scientifically proven. You can change though by just cutting the sugar/fructose and adding more probiotics to your diet.
There are a lot of kids in poor areas of the world who wish they had it like this, then.
"'The endotoxin-producing Enterobacter decreased in relative abundance from 35% of the volunteer's gut bacteria to non-detectable, during which time the volunteer lost 51.4kg of 174.8kg initial weight and recovered from hyperglycemia and hypertension after 23 weeks on a diet of whole grains, traditional Chinese medicinal foods and prebiotics.' "
Which translates to "If you don't eat fatty foods you won't get fat"
But hey blame it on the bacteria, that has to be easier than a diet of "whole grains" and prebiotics.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You seem unaware that childhood obesity is just as rampant in developing countries than it is in developed countries. For precisely the same reason, too: it's cheaper to buy processed food -- which contains just about everything you ought to stay away from if you plan to stay healthy.
Let's introduce something into your gut that throws off the horomones which control your hunger response. See how well you cope when you go around all day feeling unsatiated no matter what you eat.
Unsatisfied and hungry are two very different things, that people can't seem to wrap their heads around. Hunger can be abated by eating a rice cake and drinking a big glass of water. But that does not leave you satisfied. Large portions, sweets, and fats leave you satisfied. People need to stop looking for a magic "I feel hungry" bullet and realize that many many people over eat because it makes them feel good, and that's dopamine. Richard Simmons is one of the few who gets it. He wants people to feel good, and if you feel good through exercise and endorphins, or hugs and dopamine, then you are less likely to eat a gallon of ice cream because you have the blues. Sure there's genetics and gut bacteria and hormones, but the fact is that we are (in America) fatter than ever before, and those things have not changed. What has changed is our access to cheap food, and lack of exercise since we drive everywhere and watching TV has replaced a walk in the park. Not everyone if pre-disposed to be skinny, sure, but no one is pre-disposed to be obese.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Western mentality doesn't do well with something that isn't 'one cause - one outcome - one 'cure' '
That has brought us lots of good science and technology, but nature doesn't seem to be quite so 'limited'.
... "When you pry the source from my cold dead hands."
I can probably explain what happened to your sister (and help her). I can also bet she's suffered pretty severe psychological/neurological changes as well (though she might hide them from her family). If you want to start a conversation, ping me at dbharris@eelf.ddts.net
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
That's because you haven't experienced hormonal or food intolerance causes for the unsatiated feeling. You have to experience it to understand.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Oh bullshit. I've actually been to other countries and I have yet to go to one where you don't have people who aren't in violent disagreement with other people. There's nothing about Americans that makes them magically more this way than any other. People are people. The only difference between the US and other countries is that we give crazy levels of news coverage for these differences. It's good business airing grievances.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
I love it when Bush said "you're either with us or you're against us" and Canada basically said, whatever.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Generally, when we talk about calories in terms of nutrition we are not talking about the amount of energy in the food like we would talk about when we talk about fuels such as gasoline. The term calories when used in nutrition is actually kilocalories AND it refers to the amount of energy that can extracted by the digestive tract. So, this study (and several previous ones) have observed that some people can extract more calories from food than the normal amount that is calculated. So, to rephrase my original example. Person A, who does not have these bacteria, can extract 500 calories from a meal that Person B, who has these bacteria, can extract 750 calories from.
Now the question is, are you stupid, or just deliberately obtuse?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Why is everyone here in the US hooked on the "false dillema" falicy?
Possibly the media. All the time in the news or those morning shows, the headlines are exactly that. "Is there poison in everything we eat, OR are we all just paranoid?" etc etc.
Perhaps, eventually, people just start thinking there is only ever an either-or case to everything. They start to think logical thinking means deciding which of any two propositions is "true".
Very insightful link. Ninety minutes well spent. The comparisons between the liver's breakdown of HFCS and ethanol were a bummer though.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
That, and it's relatively uncommon.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The moral of the story is YMMV. If you limit intake of these "modern processed foods", limit or eliminate (shudder) alcohol consumption, eat nothing with added sweeteners, and eat healthy, low calorie foods that do the best job of filling you up, your body's biochemistry will eventually revert to a healthier system that makes keeping the weight off easier. Help yourself out by keeping only healthy things around the home and office to eat. They will taste better the hungrier you become. It is much more difficult for some than others, and there is no substitute for willpower.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Crafty. Well done.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
My wife had a similar problem, ate reasonably, exercised a lot, wouldn't lose weight. I know you said you tried to control carbs, but the 4 hour body diet worked for her, so maybe it would work for you.
Six days a week, high-protein, mid-fat, very very low carb. Try to zero out carbs if you can (two glasses of dry red wine are as close as you should get to carbohydrates of any sort). However, on the seventh day ("cheat day")...very high carb, mid-fat, low-protein. This tricks your body out to prevent it from going into equilibrium. It's like a weekly Thanksgiving, sorta. Also, eat at least 30g of protein every morning (including cheat day) within 30 minutes of waking up - that is a hard and fast deadline, you MUST eat at LEAST 30g of protein and it MUST be within 30 minutes of gaining consciousness.
I had my doubts, but this diet has worked miracles for my wife, and she didn't even need to exercise anymore. She no longer counts calories, either. It's also working miracles for my mom; she's losing weight, blood pressure and cholesterol are down...doctor told her "whatever you're doing keep doing it!!" Doctors used to say that fat was the source of evil calories but I really think that carbs are the real evil calories.
:(){
It's not that high-protein diets are hard on you. It's that ketosis is hard on you, and you enter ketosis if you don't consume enough carbs. Rather, you should be saying it's the low-carb diet that's hard on you, which is why the best diet I have seen recommends a weekly cheat day where you consume MASSIVE amounts of carbs to prevent your body from going into ketosis during the rest of the week when carbs are severely restricted.
As a bonus, this weekly Thanksgiving also prevents your metabolism from going into equilibrium, so you continue to lose weight for a long time, albeit slowly.
:(){
My wife was on 1200 calories/day and 1 hour of intense exercise per day. She cut out sugar and all processed food, went to wheat bread, fruits. She was barely able to maintain her weight.
She switched to high-protein diet 6 days a week, high carb on the 7th day. No longer counts calories. No more intense exercise. She's losing a consistent 1 to 1.5 pounds per week.
Call me crazy, but the "fat diet" that she found actually works. It works for her, it works for her uncle, and it works for my mother (weight down, blood pressure down, cholesterol down).
:(){
Exercise and eat healthy food. This is affordable and works wonders for physical as well as mental health.
This method has worked well, and will continue working well despite whatever relationships between gut bacteria and obesity future studies may find.
In other words, you are a gym snob.
What about the millions that never exercise, eat like hogs, and still remain thin?
You do realize, of course (of course you don't), that the scientific community has known for about 60 years that exercise does not cause weight reduction, right?
And there was a lot more to this specialized diet than simply "eating healthy food". It was specifically formulated to modify gut pH. You won't find that metric in any list of "healthy" foods.
While there are many benefits to exercise and "healthy eating", weight loss is not strongly tied to either.
Good point, AC! Certainly cows and termites can break down fiber with different gut bacteria (and different gut architecture).
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/547cellulose.html
"Animals such as cows, horses, sheep, goats, and termites have symbiotic bacteria in the intestinal tract. These symbiotic bacteria possess the necessary enzymes to digest cellulose in the GI tract. They have the required enzymes for the breakdown or hydrolysis of the cellulose; the animals do not, not even termites, have the correct enzymes. No vertebrate can digest cellulose directly."
That said, somehow I doubt humans could do it because we are not multi-stomached ruminants, but it would be great to see more science studies about it. Maybe you will be proven right and some humans with the right bacteria can do it better than other?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
There are probably lots of reasons for overweight. However, your sister's experience of gaining weight after massive doses of antibiotics could be related to the killing of your family's favorable biotics while in the hospital. I'm guessing that there are different strains of bacteria and yeast that typically inhabit the gut, that use different nutrients. We need them to help digest food, but they are symbiotic, and take what they need from the food. If that includes something that we also need, that makes the body believe that it isn't getting enough food, and that causes it to crave more.
It is a well known phenomena that obesity is 'catching'; that people who hang with fat people get fat. Some of that may be psychological, but it may also be related to passing on gut bacteria to others.
My own experience is that I was 'cured' of overweight by pancreatic disease. I eat as much or more as I used to eat, but I don't gain weight. For whatever reason, I don't digest more than I can use after my surgery. Now, isn't that strange? I went from 280 to 220, and have stayed there for a year. My digestion patterns are completely different, which is annoying, but the secret is probably pancreatic enzymes, which are now released at sub-optimal times, thus screwing up my ability to digest food. If that can happen to me after surgery, it can certainly happen to people as a simple genetic variation. Some people don't digest everything they eat, like me, but they don't require surgery for it to happen.
Another thing I'd like to say is that folks who don't have this problem simply can't understand it. They say things like 'well, I can stop eating when I'm still hungry, why can't you'? They can't really understand the situation where one just can't stop thinking about food. Their definition of 'hungry' is different. For example, there is a genetic disease called Prader-Willi syndrome, which cause the body to believe it is starving ALL THE TIME, and which causes gross overweight in its victims. If that can happen, it shows that there are ways to trick the brain into thinking it is hungry when it should not be. This problem is way more complicated that a simple-minded 'energy in = energy out' approach is capable of understanding.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company -- Mark Twain
Everybody gets high blood pressure as they age. It takes time, but nearly everybody in western society gets it. Now, why is that? I suspect that obesity is similar, in that it takes a while for some people. It is very fast in others (witness child obesity rates), and for some, it never happens because they die of something else before it occurs.
My guess is that there is some long-term chronic disease of western society that causes this, and people have different susceptibilities to it. It could be any number of things, but 'being a lard ass' probably isn't one of them. That is a symptom, not a cause.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company -- Mark Twain
The obesity epidemic started when Richard Simmons became popular. There is a direct correlation. Coincidence? I think not!
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company -- Mark Twain
Nobody can get fat (or energy) out of nothing -- or almost nothing -- as it would be against laws of physics. Just count calories and lower drastically the amount of calories you eat on average day, until you start losing weight. It is as simple as that.
Human body cannot get energy out of nothing. Human body has to maintain body temperature which is usually above the surrounding temperature and this takes constant energy. And if you eat nothing or just little, the body has no other choice than start getting the energy by burning fat and other human tissues.
However, it is worth to notice that excessive eating doesn't always has to cause obesity. For example, if you have malabsorption, a large portion of the energy that would have been available in the food, just goes directly through your intestine. That is not against laws of nature. However, getting energy out of nothing, is against laws of nature. You cannot store more energy as a fat, than the amount of energy your food has (and in reality your body has to create heat etc and cannot store all that energy as fat).
Being obese or uneducated are things that people are typically able to change. Very poor people in third world countries might not have possibility of going to school, having libraries etc, but even they can choose to just eat less and lose weight.